Classy KLM Captain
 

Today I was SLF on KL1482 from HUY to AMS, it was a pleasant and uneventful flight that as usual terminated on the apron with a bus waiting to take passengers to the terminal.

As the bus waited to leave, I observed the captain help a lady with luggage and child in arms down the steps. Once there, he went to the baggage handlers, and worked with them to unload a significantly sized multiple component stroller, by this time, said lady was at the bus. The captain made two trips from the aircraft to bus with stroller components the assisted with assembly.

Maybe it happens all the time, but this frequent flyer has not seen that level of customer service from a guy with four gold stripes before. Well done that man!
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That was probably KLMCityhopper, which was once AirUK. My guess is a UK crew and although I'm long retired, I can say, "you're welcome, we aim to please".

Indeed, KLM Cityhopper, I didn't appreciate it was the old AirUK, that said, Captain was a young man so probably not ex AirUK, although, most men are younger than I so what do I know. Whatever, great example!
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KLM CityHopper have some great crews. Yes, a percentage are British, however, for the record, as a once frequent user of this airline I wish to make it quite clear that many of the Dutch guys are just as courteous and helpful to their pax. I think it's more the airline than the nationality!

FUMR; I won't dispute that. We always had a good relationship with the Dutch crews, and of course AMS air traffic were always top-notch. You have to allow me a little bit of flag-waving though. I did 24 years with KLMuk and its predecessors.

Lots of us would love to do that, my last attempt resulted in a complaint against me for breaching Health and Safety rules as apparently I am not trained to carry a stroller upstairs to the aerobridge door :-). The loaders were refusing the carry it up the stairs as they can't have the requires points of contact whilst carrying something so I thought I would show them how it is done :-)

Could it have been the King of Netherlands, who I understand long term has been a part-time Cityhopper pilot.

As a point of interest, a lot of airlines forbid their staff to carry infants/toddlers for the reason of liability in the event of an accident (eg baby is dropped), instead we are trained to relieve the parent of the bags and other stuff so that the person can focus on carrying the baby( I'm guessing the case here did not involve carrying the baby). Not sure if the airline can still deny liability as any good lawyer will be able to contest this.

Having said that it is a human reaction to offer to carry the baby and I've seen the rule frequently broken.

Anilv

Working for an airline sounds like huge fun.....

You are not wrong there, Dude!

A most lovely story - this is the sort of thing that I, and my colleagues would, in the past, do happily (usually, lol) everyday of the week.

But sadly today our world, and not just the Aviation world, has sleep walked into a brick wall of litigation, ludicrous H&S, and much much more that prevents common sense to be included in our day to day working and personal lives.
There is hardly any 'can do' attitude today for fear of repercussions, which can quickly lead to the loss of your job, or at best demotion.
This story today though gives us a bit of hope.

As quoted above by His dudeness:
''Working for an airline sounds like huge fun...''

Well I am sure it still is, I have friends who still fly, and work on the ground and they will always love it,
but I am long retired now, and so I think I would last about 3 minutes in any Airline employment today!

Safeguarding rules where I volunteer state that touching babies and young children is a total no-no. I'm assuming this was just the buggy.

Not anymore, he now flies with KLM on the 737 fleet. Cityhopper sold the last Fokker 70 aircraft in 2017 and the government aircraft (also a F70) went around the same time. Government bought a new 737BBJ and our King got his 737 type rating.

Ah, the good old Air Anglia days. I made a fair few flights with them and all were very pleasurable. An era I miss.

Blimey, in other airlines, you see this daily! Usually because the airline has under resourced the ground handling……Any pilot that is a parent sympathizes with any one travelling with young children and usually will try and help out. I’ve even see pilots pushing wheelchair passengers to immigration/baggage reclaim as the delay for assistance is sometimes measured in hours at LHR.

It would definitely be KLM Cityhopper, main line KLM do not fly to HUY. With less than a dozen and a half ex Air UK/KLM UK Captains left in KLM Cityhopper, and one or two now on a Dutch contract, I think the odds are in favour of the Captain being one of the hundreds of Dutch nationality.

There are no Health and Safety regulations precluding this sort of thing in Cityhopper and I doubt if there were, any pilot, Dutch or British, would take any notice of them.

Cabin crew are normally forbidden from helping with carry on luggage in case of injury, or back strain from lifting a bag into an overhead locker.

Unfortunately these days liability is everything and doing something outside of your job description isn’t a good idea. What if the Captain involved had dropped a bag onto a loader’s foot and injured him ? The lawyers would have been all over it, the company would deny liability as he wasn’t trained and certified, the insurers would be singing the same tune so guess who loses his house in a damages claim ?

As for babies and children, all it takes is “He touched me.” and your career is over.

In a previous freight job, we weren’t allowed to ride in a courier van due to insurance rules, they didn’t want pilot income level claims in the event of an accident.

This appears to be very much a Western issue as within Asia and on Asian carriers, cabin crew are very willing to assist.

What an undignifying world we live in where we are ridiculed for simply being human. Companies have their sights firmly set on money, society with their newfangled ideas and behaving despicably. No wonder the world we live in is depressing.