When bad weather strikes and your travel plans quickly go sideways, it’s best to roll with the punches and make the best of a bad situation. On a recent trip to Glasgow via Amsterdam with KLM, a misconnection from my originating flight in New York — and a seemingly never-ending dense fog — gave me the opportunity to sample KLM’s oldest and also newest European products.
Originally booked on KLM’s elderly Boeing 737-800s for the Amsterdam-Glasgow roundtrip portion of my journey, I had missed my flight and because of cancellations due to the fog actually ended up flying to Edinburgh instead. Edinburgh just happens to be one of the handful of routes with a frequency operated by KLM’s newest fleet type, the Airbus A321neo.
I’d have to wait slightly longer to get there as boarding KLM’s 227-seat, 39-row A321neo took far longer than it should have. Despite the wider aisles of the Airbus and the massive XL overhead bins, our departure was delayed by an additional 15 minutes due to the sluggishness of boarding. KLM clearly has some tweaking to do on the turns of this densely configured aircraft.
The Recaro R1 seats in economy range from 29 to 30 inches of pitch, and at least up in row 9, this living space was perfectly sufficient for me for the roughly 1-hour flight.
Each seat features a device holder with integrated cup holder, though KLM does not offer any streaming entertainment solution so be sure to BYO content.
If you come equipped with the correct cable, this is great as it’ll power just about anything. Passengers with a USB-A cable, however, are left out.
Once aloft a quick snack and beverage service was conducted, which as an American traveler is actually a bit of a treat! Many airlines in the United States may forego a service entirely on a flight with an in-air time of just barely an hour.
KLM, however, managed to distribute a tasty cheese sandwich and drinks to all 39 rows, with cabin crew working from both ends of the aircraft and meeting in the middle.
KLM’s A321neo is equipped with Viasat’s Ka-band satellite-supported inflight connectivity system, though the absurd pricing for a 61-minute flight had me opting only for the free messaging service.
EUR 10 for browsing-only and EUR 20 for a streaming-enabled plan in 2025 feels outrageous.
While I was able to send messages using the Signal app, iMessage didn’t work at all so the service had little value to me. That made me 0 for 2 with Viasat on this trip so far, as the Wi-Fi portal on my earlier Delta flight from New York didn’t work at all, preventing me from even connecting to the free messaging service.
The return flight from Glasgow ended up with one of KLM’s oldest 737-800s, a 24-year old model with a very basic passenger experience.
Everything on board this aircraft was several generations older than my previous flight. Gone were the USB-C port, the device holder, the cup holder, the massive overhead bins, and the Wi-Fi. And each row had a comparatively chunky blue seat and maroon seat belt.
The first few rows of Eurobusiness class do have an AC power outlet. I somehow managed to work my way into an exit row, which provided oodles of legroom compared to the rather cramped looking regular economy seats.
This time an egg curry sandwich on rye bread was served, yet again allowing me to appreciate KLM’s free snack service. On a US airline, you’d be lucky to get a Biscoff cookie or tiny bag of pretzels, let alone a variety of tasty sandwiches. Kudos to KLM for not (yet) moving to a buy-on-board scheme.
It was fascinating to see the progression of KLM’s #PaxEx over two and a half decades between these two flights. The A321neo is clearly a better experience all around, which should be a surprise to nobody. But sometimes a blast from the past is a great reminder of just how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time.
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All images credited to the author, Jason Rabinowitz
