Hello everybody,
After having read so many flight reports here, I thought the only decent thing to do is to leave a report myself. Unfortunately, I only have one flight with enough pictures to satisfy for a short report, and at the time, I did not know I'd make these pictures to be used in a flight report later. So the pictures are not great, hope you will still enjoy this FR.
Flight started of course on Dulles airport, which I consider to be a great airport, comfortable, roomy and very nice looking. Only minus are the stupid busses when you arrive, but overall, I think I love Dulles a lot. I don't have any pictures of Dulles nor the AF lounge near the gate. What I like about the AF lounge is that you can board to gate A15 straight from the lounge, no need to exit and go the general line. Newspapers and everything are provided while boarding.
I flew the KLM WBC IAD-AMS on the A330-300, which is the not-too-bad angle lie flat seat, not as good as the new WBC, but definitely better than the slippery slope seat on the -200. Mine was 5A with nobody next to me so quite private - really nice.
As said, the seat is not the newest but it beats Y/Y+ and I can sleep pretty well on it. Also, it is quite wide (I think wider than the new WBC) so I do find it quite comfortable
Service started with a nice sparkly wine
After that I chose some nuts and a rosé wine. Both were really nice.
The KLM IFE is quite nice on the A333. However you can see that on this particular layout, there is velcro all around the screen. Although not clearly visible on this picture, this was clearly not the first layer of velcro because the glue from pervious layers was visible too. It gave the entire seat a rather shabby look. I gather that they use the velcro to seal off a crew compartment if required but still, it looks a bit shabby
A not-so-great picture of the IFE control box.
The KLM Purser came around and made some small talk, he was very pleasant and showed genuine interest. Very nice. After that, dinner service started. I had the chicken sesame & ginger as a starter. It looks fantastic but the taste was not great - the chicken tasted overcooked and over processed to be honest.
I don't remember what the main course was exactly but it tasted horrible. I barely ate it.
In order to get some sleep, I skipped desert and closed my eyes. Got a good 5 hrs sleep on the flight, when I was awoken by the FA who asked if I wanted breakfast. She was very gentle waking me and I remembered that I had actually asked her to do that! Good she remembered. Breakfast was good (sorry for the half-eaten pie picture), with a hot pie, fresh fruit, salmon and a yoghurt/muesli mix. Really nice.
Thank you for sharing your first FR. Even if incomplete its a great start ;
Welcome aboard.
Thanks for your nice reply!
Thanks for sharing your first report! And it's from my city (DC) so that's always good! Yes, Dulles is a great airport, except that the security checkpoint can be a mess and you are right that it is a pain taking those buses to immigration on arrival. Having to pack into those buses essentially negate any benefit of being in a premium class at the front of the plane and getting off the plane earlier. Usually I try to be sneaky and stay near the door of the bus instead of moving to the back so I can get off and down to immigration faster, but more often then not the driver forces people to move back. I agree that the AF lounge in IAD is great. It's one of AF's best outstation lounges IMO. I think some of the 332s also have this seat. Although, like you say, this WBC seat is not the best it is definitely better than the old seats, like I had on a 772 AMS-JNB in 2013. Those seats are awful!
Thanks again for sharing and welcome to Flight-Report!
Thanks for sharing your report!
I'm sorry to hear your experience with KLM wasn't that great on the food front ... Glad to hear that the service was good though!
My wife and I flew out of Dulles a few years ago on our way to Copenhagen and found the airport to be also very nice to transit through.
Looking forward to your next trip!
Best,
Matthew
Thanks Matthew!
Welcome and thanks for this FR.
I agree that boarding directly from the lounge is really nice and premium.
Too bad the food was good looking but bad tasting, usually it's the other way around on KL!
I wonder what the velcro is for on newer seats.
Thanks! Nice handle by the way, looks you fly this route often as well :)
I'd say the food was not to my liking, meaning that it was probably good but not something I personally appreciated. KLM staff was great as usual.
-Daan