KL553 Amsterdam - Cairo
by JFC AdminMy first flight on KLM intercontinental. The flight was relatively short so it was a good candidate to be booked in economy. Managed to reserve seats in row 10 which is a 2-3-2 configuration rather than a 3-3-3 configuration in the rest of the cabin.
On this aircraft business class is also 2-3-2, personally I’d find a middle seat in business class unacceptable but as I was travelling economy then I could not experience the business class seating on this aircraft. The most important thing to stand out on this flight was the interactive in-flight entertainment. I was very impressed with the video on demand offerings on this flight, a good choice of movies and comedies as well as many other categories of programming that I didn’t explore. There was enough to keep me occupied with this service I’d be more than happy to take a longer flight with this entertainment system, but as I can’t sleep very well in economy I’d take my longer flights in business class if they involved an overnight.
The in-flight entertainment meant that I wasn’t paying much attention to the other aspects of service, I drank a lot less than I’d usually do on a long flight. The meal was from the ‘taste of China’ range, although feedback on these meals have not been too positive on FlyerTalk I’d class the meal as acceptable, it was a reasonable size for the length of flight.
Beer was a choice of Heineken or a Chinese beer, fitting in with the China theme of the month. The Chinese beer was passable but I preferred the Heineken and so stuck with that. The wine was also Chinese, but I tried it in the lounge earlier and decided that I did not like it.
The crew were friendly and professional except for the senior purser who was a little bit grumpy. I’d definitely recommend the KLM 777 or A330 when flying longhaul economy, the entertainment is really top class. Although I know other airlines also have a decent interactive entertainment system KLM does offer very competitive pricing.