KLM: A Dream Lies Shattered...

I always wanted to travel by KLM (The Royal Dutch Airlines). Right now I am sitting at Amsterdam Airport Schipol (have an 8 hour transit here!) thinking why did I ever have this dream!
Lets start from the beginning... I have always had this thing about flying KLM. Don't know how it got into my head. So when I had a chance to fly to Vancouver by KLM I took it without a second thought. The one big advantage of flying KLM is that they fly from Bristol (where I am based) therefore I don't have to undertake a long and expensive bus ride to Heathrow (London).

Anyway so the aircraft for the Bristol-Amsterdam flight was a Fokker 70. It was bit old but I knew they would not put a brand new Boeing 777-200ER on a low yeild route like Bristol-Amsterdam. Now during the Bristol - Amsterdam flight I just happen to pick up the KLM Inflight Magazine. In the magazine they had given a list of all the aircraft in the KLM fleet. Reading through the list I spotted the 777-200ER and I thought that I would be travelling to Vancouver from Amsterdam on that. The special thing about 777-200ER is that it has an on demand entertainment system for every seat. So you can decide what you want to see and when you want to see it. The next aircraft which caught my attention was the MD-11 (the worlds only 3 engine aircraft!). Seeing it I smiled and thought of the poor people travelling in an old aircraft like that! I thought probably they reserve it for non-major routes say going towards Eastern Europe or Russia. With these happy thoughts I landed at Amsterdam and made my way towards the connecting flight.

I guess you all can imagine what happened next.
To my utter amazement I saw that the aircraft for Vancouver was an MD-11! I couldn't believe it!
My shock turned to horror when I entered the aircraft and took my seat. No on demand entertainment system, no private viewing screen... there was NOTHING modern about the aircraft.
I knew it would be a long long 9 hours to Vancouver.
I prayed to God that atleast on the return flight the aircraft would be bit better. I didnt want an on demand entertainment system, a simple personal viewer would do. But the return flight turned out to be even more amusing.
The aircraft airconditioning system was leaking, a reading light wouldnt switch off (so the crew covered it with metal foil) and the food was (to put it in a nice way) crap.

The leaking roof ;)


Reading light covered with foil!

Compared to this my flight to Melbourne via Dubai was much more entertaining. The service aboard Emirates was first class (even in Economy!), the air hostesses were real hot looking and on the whole it was a travellers dream come true.