KLM

[LBAYORKIE]

If thats what the airline recommend thats what people, travel agents et al will use.

Who in their right mind is going to allow 3 hours? As an example we flew to Billund via AMS, which involved 2 hours in the air. Why would anyone accept 3 hours on the ground in AMS?

The same applies to many European destinations, its only for long haul that I think anyone would countenance such a long transfer.

 

[Finger66]

If thats what the airline recommend thats what people, travel agents et al will use.

Who in their right mind is going to allow 3 hours? As an example we flew to Billund via AMS, which involved 2 hours in the air. Why would anyone accept 3 hours on the ground in AMS?

The same applies to many European destinations, its only for long haul that I think anyone would countenance such a long transfer.

Exactly. Well said @LBAYORKIE End of argument in regards to the current shambles:
If AMS itself cannot cope then cut capacity/frequencies and high frequency routes
Do something to address the current LBA (and other) issues. I hear you when you say they are "apparently" trying but from where I am stood it doesn't look like much gets done.
And meanwhile we get ever closer to a new football season. Then what!

 

[pug]

If thats what the airline recommend thats what people, travel agents et al will use.

Who in their right mind is going to allow 3 hours? As an example we flew to Billund via AMS, which involved 2 hours in the air. Why would anyone accept 3 hours on the ground in AMS?

The same applies to many European destinations, it’s only for long haul that I think anyone would countenance such a long transfer.

KLM may recommend that but if you look for independent travel advice it’ll tell you that a minimum of 60 minutes for Schengen and 75 for other international connections is the ideal. Of course if you’ve booked through KLM then they are responsible for ensuring you meet the connection and if not then they have to look after you. But the diligence really rests on the person doing the booking and flying. If the gate is within easy reach then absolutely 40-50 minutes is doable, but having done it numerous times myself (and literally running for it!) 40-50 minutes is really pushing it, particularly if you arrive on one pier and are connecting to a flight that happens to be at the end of an adjacent pier.

Exactly. Well said @LBAYORKIE End of argument in regards to the current shambles:
If AMS itself cannot cope then cut capacity/frequencies and high frequency routes
Do something to address the current LBA (and other) issues. I hear you when you say they are "apparently" trying but from where I am stood it doesn't look like much gets done.
And meanwhile we get ever closer to a new football season. Then what!

You’re missing the point completely. Nobody seems to know why the T3 flights were cancelled on Sunday, some say crewing issues but they still managed to service other flights. KLC have been known to step in from standby in these scenarios yet they didn’t. Why? For a network as large as KLMs the service doesn’t revolve around LBA, there are far bigger implications here. KLM wouldn’t continue using T3 if they were that bad, they do have other European options but seem to not use them. The choice of aircraft proves problematic for crewing. T3 have other contracts that KLM will be well aware of and they’ve made the decision to continue regardless.

Call it manage to destruction if you like, I prefer the pragmatic view myself. The facts as posted by Severn speak for themselves.

 

[Len Fish]

I believe KLM recommend a minimum of fifty minutes for connections, forty for Schengen. Three hours is far too much.

Not when you’re relying on Eastern!

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Cant have different rules for them though. Apart from anything else its an admission of an inferior service.

KLM may recommend that but if you look for independent travel advice it’ll tell you that a minimum of 60 minutes for Schengen and 75 for other international connections is the ideal. Of course if you’ve booked through KLM then they are responsible for ensuring you meet the connection and if not then they have to look after you. But the diligence really rests on the person doing the booking and flying. If the gate is within easy reach then absolutely 40-50 minutes is doable, but having done it numerous times myself (and literally running for it!) 40-50 minutes is really pushing it, particularly if you arrive on one pier and are connecting to a flight that happens to be at the end of an adjacent pier.


You’re missing the point completely. Nobody seems to know why the T3 flights were cancelled on Sunday, some say crewing issues but they still managed to service other flights. KLC have been known to step in from standby in these scenarios yet they didn’t. Why? For a network as large as KLMs the service doesn’t revolve around LBA, there are far bigger implications here. KLM wouldn’t continue using T3 if they were that bad, they do have other European options but seem to not use them. The choice of aircraft proves problematic for crewing. T3 have other contracts that KLM will be well aware of and they’ve made the decision to continue regardless.

Call it manage to destruction if you like, I prefer the pragmatic view myself. The facts as posted by Severn speak for themselves.

Its a fact that Leeds needs KLM more than KLM needs Leeds. But KLM are extremely important to Leeds they are the only large flag carrier with decent connections. If we lose KLM its a big deal. Easyjet arent the answer, what we need is another legacy carrier with similar connections, for example LH. That' s the only way to get KLM to up their game.

 

[Finger66]

KLM may recommend that but if you look for independent travel advice it’ll tell you that a minimum of 60 minutes for Schengen and 75 for other international connections is the ideal. Of course if you’ve booked through KLM then they are responsible for ensuring you meet the connection and if not then they have to look after you. But the diligence really rests on the person
You’re missing the point completely. Nobody seems to know why the T3 flights were cancelled on Sunday, some say crewing issues but they still managed to service other flights. KLC have been known to step in from standby in these scenarios yet they didn’t. Why? For a network as large as KLMs the service doesn’t revolve around LBA, there are far bigger implications here. KLM wouldn’t continue using T3 if they were that bad, they do have other European options but seem to not use them. The choice of aircraft proves problematic for crewing. T3 have other contracts that KLM will be well aware of and they’ve made the decision to continue regardless.

Call it manage to destruction if you like, I prefer the pragmatic view myself. The facts as posted by Severn speak for themselves.

No one is missing any point, this situation is not acceptable, not for LBA, not for the pax, not for any other airport and I would hope not KLM. I suspect T3 don't give a S**t because they will be being paid regardless, unless there are certain penalty clauses included in the contract.
Yes I/we are biased towards LBA but as this is the LBA forum why shouldn't we be. CWL posters are up in arms about losing their night stopper, but other than that I haven't seen or heard too much noise from other airports/forums etc.
As had been previously posted, EXT recently joined the network but yet AMS is supposedly at capacity and KLCH supposedly need T3s help to fulfil the schedule - so how does that work then!
We here at LBA are being well and truly shafted by what has become........we'll fill in your own ending(S).
I do however accept there is not necessarily an easy (no pun intended) answer but no business should be allowed to continue in this vain

 

[pug]

No one is missing any point, this situation is not acceptable, not for LBA, not for the pax, not for any other airport and I would hope not KLM. I suspect T3 don't give a S**t because they will be being paid regardless, unless there are certain penalty clauses included in the contract.
Yes I/we are biased towards LBA but as this is the LBA forum why shouldn't we be. CWL posters are up in arms about losing their night stopper, but other than that I haven't seen or heard too much noise from other airports/forums etc.
As had been previously posted, EXT recently joined the network but yet AMS is supposedly at capacity and KLCH supposedly need T3s help to fulfil the schedule - so how does that work then!
We here at LBA are being well and truly shafted by what has become........we'll fill in your own ending(S).
I do however accept there is not necessarily an easy (no pun intended) answer but no business should be allowed to continue in this vain

I don’t have the answers, just hope it works out. The points about T3 are, though somewhat valid (someting most of the staff would agree with I assure you!), are not always accurate. Plus KLM have been a long serving partner of LBA and many other airports and whilst we have all had frustrations as SLF, we have to remember that this is an aviation forum and we can discuss at great lengths the challenges that cause problems otherwise unacceptable to the travelling public.

The problems are far greater than the issues T3 might bring to the table. Some may be exacerbated but most are not of Easterns making at all. I’m certain that LBA management will be far more pragmatic about it given the long term stability of the route and knowing how difficult it will be to provide solid competition for the interlining market.

I think we can all agree that we want things to go back to the way they were with KLC aircraft and KLC crew operating the route. For whatever reason this isn’t the case at the moment, who knows what’s round the corner, but it’s not an issue that’s going to get fixed over night and it’s out with the control of people at LBA. Think we’d all prefer continuation of the service (with caveats) than the total loss of it.

Regards EXT, if I’m not mistaken that’s a one daily rotation. I personally wouldn’t like to see HUY or LBA reduced to a one daily rotation, the contract with T3 is designed to avoid that.

 

[Finger66]

Regards EXT, if I’m not mistaken that’s a one daily rotation. I personally wouldn’t like to see HUY or LBA reduced to a one daily rotation, the contract with T3 is designed to avoid that.

Absolutely agree we don't want to see a reduction in frequency. The point being though that EXT is a new addition to a network that was already struggling so why introduce more pressure. Surely it would make sense for that KLCH a/c to serve one of the existing airports that T3 fly from/to this allowing them some slack/resilience. Just doesn't make any sense to me

 

[pug]

Absolutely agree we don't want to see a reduction in frequency. The point being though that EXT is a new addition to a network that was already struggling so why introduce more pressure. Surely it would make sense for that KLCH a/c to serve one of the existing airports that T3 fly from/to this allowing them some slack/resilience. Just doesn't make any sense to me

As always there will be things that we mere mortals would never even consider. But the idea of the T3 contract was to reduce the burden on KLC, but ironically T3 are suffering the same challenges as KLC because of the Embraer being a bit of a technical handful when things go wrong and because the pilot employment market is quite buoyant people want to move on and not fly the Embraer so it’s tricky retaining experience which is needed to train people and ensure you have the safe levels of experience running the operation. I see the NCL-AMS made a 7700 into HUY a couple of hours ago for instance, most likely due technical reasons (though I can’t be sure).

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt, I’ve worked for a couple of airlines/aviation companies in my time (though not Eastern I hasten to add), and if anyone thinks they run on rails they are sadly VERY mistaken. As interesting as it is working in the airline side it’s also frequently chaotic. The bigger airlines with larger resource obviously fare better when it comes to technical issues etc, but crewing, even for the bigger outfits, can be an issue when you have numerous crew off sick. Never worked in crewing nor would I like to but I understand joining the dots can be very tricky. The fact that Eastern are even managing to run a schedule at all given the chaos there is nothing short of remarkable and if KLM are serious about contracting this out to third parties then I hope they manage to establish themselves and not mess it up, regardless of how bad peoples experiences of dealing with them might have been.

 

[Finger66]

One good thing that has come out of all this, regardless of anyone's views and opinions, is a clear passion for this to work out for the best, in whatever form that takes

 

[Jerry]

Absolutely agree we don't want to see a reduction in frequency. The point being though that EXT is a new addition to a network that was already struggling so why introduce more pressure. Surely it would make sense for that KLCH a/c to serve one of the existing airports that T3 fly from/to this allowing them some slack/resilience. Just doesn't make any sense to me

But we don’t know if the Exeter flight is extra or they dropped a frequency from or cut another route or had mainline takeover another route.

 

[White Heather]

As always there will be things that we mere mortals would never even consider. But the idea of the T3 contract was to reduce the burden on KLC, but ironically T3 are suffering the same challenges as KLC because of the Embraer being a bit of a technical handful when things go wrong and because the pilot employment market is quite buoyant people want to move on and not fly the Embraer so it’s tricky retaining experience which is needed to train people and ensure you have the safe levels of experience running the operation. I see the NCL-AMS made a 7700 into HUY a couple of hours ago for instance, most likely due technical reasons (though I can’t be sure).

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt, I’ve worked for a couple of airlines/aviation companies in my time (though not Eastern I hasten to add), and if anyone thinks they run on rails they are sadly VERY mistaken. As interesting as it is working in the airline side it’s also frequently chaotic. The bigger airlines with larger resource obviously fare better when it comes to technical issues etc, but crewing, even for the bigger outfits, can be an issue when you have numerous crew off sick. Never worked in crewing nor would I like to but I understand joining the dots can be very tricky. The fact that Eastern are even managing to run a schedule at all given the chaos there is nothing short of remarkable and if KLM are serious about contracting this out to third parties then I hope they manage to establish themselves and not mess it up, regardless of how bad peoples experiences of dealing with them might have been.

Out of curiosity, has the contract with German Airways finished? They didn't seem to suffer reliability problems in the way that Eastern do (for whatever reason). They were generally fairly punctual and seen at LBA over a long period, but now not at all.

 

[Jerry]

Out of curiosity, has the contract with German Airways finished? They didn't seem to suffer reliability problems in the way that Eastern do (for whatever reason). They were generally fairly punctual and seen at LBA over a long period, but now not at all.

Nope they're still operating on behalf of KLM.

 

[Severn]

Out of curiosity, has the contract with German Airways finished? They didn't seem to suffer reliability problems in the way that Eastern do (for whatever reason). They were generally fairly punctual and seen at LBA over a long period, but now not at all.

German Airways operate a fleet of 9x E190s, with six of them operating today for KLM to mostly German destinations but also to LCY.
Shockingly, as has been said endlessly on this thread, it’s not just Eastern that have problems; German Airways also have seen their fair share of delays and cancellations over the past month.

 

[pug]

Out of curiosity, has the contract with German Airways finished? They didn't seem to suffer reliability problems in the way that Eastern do (for whatever reason). They were generally fairly punctual and seen at LBA over a long period, but now not at all.

What Severn said. Basically no but they’re EU based and so don’t have the advantage of access to uk crews so night stops etc have to be factored in, hence taking on Eastern too. If you look on the AMS departures boards you’re just as likely if not more so to see delays on their sectors, just like KLC and just like Mainline SH.

 

[Jerry]

Anyone know what's happened here?View attachment 32574

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Anyone know what's happened here?View attachment 32574

Fire alarm in tower

I see tomorrows 06:20 to AMS is cancelled!

Update, tonights late flight into Leeds from AMS is also cancelled.

 

[Jerry]

Fire alarm in tower

I see tomorrows 06:20 to AMS is cancelled!

Well I'd expect that this crew would be the ones for that flight and the delay may mean now they won't have enough rest hours.

 

[CM.]

It was cancelled before that happened.

 

[Finger66]

The only comment I will make here is not to comment on this debacle and going into yet another rant about it!