Just Getting There

I remember when flying was fun, a big adventure to dress up for. Now it's an ordeal I have to armour myself against. I keep switching airlines hoping to find the magical company that actually likes their passengers. When I first started to fly to Paris, it seemed only natural that I go with Air France. The coffee was wonderful and when the plane landed, the music of Under Paris Skies flooded the cabin. And if the flight attendants were a bit snooty? Well they acclimatized me for my destination.
But I found my fellow flyers horribly horribly noisy. I always seemed to be the lone passenger in amongst a bevy of tour groups that partied their way across the Atlantic, grabbing on my seat and screaming across the aisle.
Forget about trying to sleep on the plane. Charter outfits were worse with limited legroom for even my 5 foot frame.
Then I discovered British Airways. And if I had to fly via Heathrow, so what? It gave me time to shop at Harrods and load up on jelly babies and Thornton's chocolates. But with the building of Terminal 5, that little hour layover became 4 or 5 and when I got into Paris, I was truly wiped and so was the rest of my day.
I flew KLM because it suddenly had the best deal going. I could still fly direct to Paris only then I was pushed back on their sister company, Air France, who were now minus the great coffee and the music but more overwhelmed with rowdies whose verbosity made my ears bleed.
Flying via Amsterdam meant I could pop into the duty free for my favourite dutch licorice so it was a done deal.

Only when I tried to get a boarding pass, the machine spat out a slip telling me to go to passenger assistance. Where I had to wait and wait and wait. The check-in clerk was friendly enough, explaining they'd like my seat as the flight to Amsterdam was overbooked and suggesting I fly Air France direct. She was apologetic enough when I explained I didn't like Air France. For some reason, her supervisor kept skirting around us, holding up his hand to her entreaties. When he sneeringly told me I would have to wait an extra 55 minutes with no upgrade (and at that point, probably a middle seat), I firmly turned him down. Hey, it's why I don't fly Air France.
But KLM turned out to be little better. We flew an older plane where the top of my armrest came off in my hand. Our hors d'oeuvre size meal arrived with a label insisting "delicious meal"--neither word having anything to do with the contents of the tray. You could count the pieces of pasta adorned with dried up breaded mystery meat along with some sort of creamed carrots with capers and a spongy brown square with an undertaste of fuel. The boxed breakfast came with a similar label and coffee, complete with powdered creamer. Really? In this age of technological wonders, why are economy passengers given food reminiscent of my childhood flights, while at the same time tortured with Holland Herald images of what the better classes are eating in Business?
I could only see it as inspiration for this blog and an immediate written complaint.
"KLM should be ashamed at what they try to pass off as food in economy. A passenger should not have to fly business class in order to get something edible. (I took pictures of my "Delicious meal" to post on my travel blog. You can tell your marketing people that just because you label something 'delicious' does not make it so.)
And the breakfast in a box was the equivalent of something I'd pick up in a gas station.
Whatever happened to Dutch hospitality?"

The hospitality starts when you're there