After umpteen trips out of LCY over the years, it was recently a first time for me to Amsterdam. At 181 nm wisdom was always that this was too short for a jet, yet the F50s used for years have been supplanted by RJs. Do the extra seats more than make up for the extra costs I wonder ?
I haven't said which carrier we were on, because it wasn't particularly clear. KLM tickets, but KLM aircraft came off the route last year. Ticket actually said "operated by VLM", but there's no trace of VLM either any more and the RJ aircraft and all aspects of service are from CityJet. But I do wonder whose AOC we were on, whose insurance, and whether the requirements for advising to passengers the actual operator are being met.
Maybe the IT systems have just not kept up. They certainly haven't on the check-in machines (which I believe are operated by Air France, not CityJet) in the main LCY hall. We approached a free one which had a range of logos to choose from, Air France, VLM, etc, selected VLM as the only evident option, worked through the questions, inserted the passport for recognition (which these machines never, ever manage, and the same this time), were asked for our flight number, and now VLM have vanished from the carrier logos, and we have no valid carrier to choose from. The assistant comes up and says "use another machine", which seems illogical, but when I look at the one alongside the starting range of logos is different and more comprehensive. Somehow they seem to have different versions of the software on adjacent machines, and this one takes us through what are obviously a different set of questions, and works (well, apart from the passport scanner).
In case you think our passports are somehow u/s, at Amsterdam on the return leg, on comparable KLM machines, they work fine.
I don't want this to be all negative, so must report that the security queue marshal, having addressed the previous passenger as "Madam", addresses Mrs WHBM
as "Miss"
. Makes her day !
On we go. Upstairs things have changed since I last went back to the "new" buffet at the rear of the departure area. It used to have proper food but has now been reduced to the same thin range as its compatriot by the security exit. And the lounge/tables area alongside has disappeared as well, replaced it seems by another security unit. This new buffet area cannot have lasted more than 12 months from when it was opened.
On to the gate. Do be certain to remember your gate number from back in the lounge (not shown on the boarding card), because the screen over the designated one, instead of showing the flight number/destination as usual, says "refer to airline staff". Except, of course, that down here in the departure corridor there aren't any at all to refer to.
Oh dear, LCY, when will something be done about the swaying queues down the narrow steps to the gate, where leaving passengers to stand on a narrow step for 10 minutes or more would surely fail any 'Elf & Saf'ty inspection if these meant anything rather than being a makework for bureaucrats. It has been like this at LCY for years. It is exacerbated by screens saying the flight is "boarding" when it patently isn't, and by the usual Air France ground crew of three, for whom one does the boarding card inspection, slowly, and the other two stand by and watch. Then we all stand at the gate and wait, until the flight is announced. Not as KLM or VLM, but in normal LCY style as "Zeetyjott".
How pleasant to go up the aircraft steps into a world of SOPs and properly thought out procedures.