Hi guys

For all my Amsterdam trips, I've used easyjet to fly from Scotland to Amsterdam. I have found them surprisingly good. Out of 8 trips, only one return flight was delayed. They are generally quick at getting people on and off the plane and the journey nearly always lasts around the 1 hour mark. I'm a small guy so seat comfort is not a big issue. I also like the fact I can check in on-line so the only thing I need to do at the airport is go through security.

Sometimes however, KLM's ticket prices are equivalent to easyjet's. Is KLM better or worse than easyjet or are they pretty much just the same?

I've flown to Amsterdam with KLM, BMI Baby and EasyJet from various U.K. airports and I would say KLM have the best all round service. That said, the cheapest airfare (coupled with a convenient airport) is always going to be my biggest concern. Luckily, I've never had any significant delays flying to or from Amsterdam with any of those carriers either. They are so similar in service (in my opinion) that airfare is still my biggest concern.

I'd recommend easyjet to anyone, but if KLM were just as cheap (to within £20 or so), then I'd consider them instead. My local airport has KLM at almost 50-100% dearer at all times though, even way in advance.

Okay thanks, seems they are farily similar then.

I was going to go for KLM but when I went to book it a few hours later, the price had gone up by £35 so easyjet it is.

We went KLM on our last trip as I just couldn't face more Easyjet fucking around. It's not the planes that get me. It's the being called to your gate up to an hour before the plane has even landed, then hovering around trying to keep a good position close to the door for the scramble when the plane does arrive. With KLM we were in the bar, left, walked straight onto the plane and into our allotted seats. Flew about 20 minutes after that. Worth the money this time to avoid the stress, and to feel like we were on holiday from the moment we got to the airport. Maybe I just like bars too much :-)

Personally would pay quite a bit more to fly KLM, it's way better IMO

Easyjet is much better in my opinion. Usually cheaper so you can save more money for your mongering trip!

I've flown with both in the past and also jet2. But now fly only with KLM.

I used to fly with easyjet and jet2 when they truly were low cost and fares were really cheap. A few years ago I flew with these for as little as £30 but those fares are long gone now. It was worth the hassle for those prices.

The main thing is though where I live. I live close to a small regional airport where KLM fly out of. The flight times are brilliant, perfect really and with it being such a small airport there are never any queues. I can usually get a fare around £118.

I could get a cheaper flight with easyjet or jet2 but that would mean getting up at an ungodly early time and facing driving a fair distance on the motorway and the hassles of big airports. Then there's the shitty flight times on the return.

So with that in mind and then the cost of petrol and car parking i'd end up saving a few quid. It's just not worth it. And I can't bear the cattle stampede free for all that easyjet flights often entail.

I can understand that gazza, going to a more local airport is probably worth the price increase alone.

KLM offer better flight times from my airport and also 4 flights per day back and forward but the price increase is massive. Easyjet's times are still okay though - early departure and night time return although recently they have pushed the morning flight a few hours forward which shortens my day-trips :(

I've used them several times again since starting this thread and still have no complaints. The cattle stampede (lol) doesn't happen anymore as all flights now have allocated seating. I usually pay a few quid more for a seat at the front of the plane which also lets me skip the massive queue at security at my airport.

£30? Was that for a return flight? That would have been amazing. I think the cheapest I've had is £70 return. Another good point about Easyjet is that I can get a fully flexible flight at really good price (around £140) which I've made use of on a few of my trips. It's great to be able to extend my trip for free when I feel like staying a little longer :) I wish they offered some sort of money saving loyalty scheme though - I fly with them every month, on average.

Yes it was a return flight! It was a good few years back though. It was the good old days when you paid the fare and there were no add ons afterwards, although easyjet are better than jet2 in this respect.


That's good to hear, I never really understood the concept of unallocated seating on a plane.


You probably wouldn't get much even if they had one. I got to the 2nd tier (Silver) in KLM's Flying Blue Loyalty scheme and the only benefit I could see with that was you could go to the front of the queue at boarding. Which I never do anyway because you just look like a bit of a twat.


Go for two days then! :)

Looking back I've used easyjet quite a lot when visiting other cities around Europe. They do have a great choice of destinations with quite decent flight times and prices and i've only ever had 1 serious delay with them. I'd certainly be happy to use them anytime except when going to the Dam when its KLM for the reasons I already said.

Nice! Although maybe it's good that prices are higher now, otherwise I'd probably be in Amsterdam every week :P


Ah, that's good to know. I thought I might have been missing out on big discounts but clearly not.


Haha, I still manage to get a good 7 hours of mongering time... day trips are good for when I have a tight budget or a random holiday from work. They are very cheap compared to a few nights trip - only the flight and a couple of girls to pay for :)

I should have mentioned you do accrue air miles to get free flights but it's hardly worthwhile. I was going to claim one but it turned out you had to fly on dates KLM specified. I can't remember exactly but it was something stupid like you couldn't be away over a weekend. Then the free flight was only the fare - you still had to pay all taxes and charges which the way KLM break it down the actual fare can be out 20% of the ticket.
So my "Free" flight saved me about £20 if I flew both legs midweek - brilliant!

I made several flights with EasyJet last year from Glasgow, like loolz, and found them perfectly fine and the allocated seating trial on flights to Amsterdam (in contrast to flights to Stansted, which still had the cattle herd scenario in place) worked well. However, their winter timetable didn't suit me at all and I reverted to KLM.

I think EasyJet had a marginal advantage on price last year, but KLM can be pretty fair if booked well enough in advance, plus they have several flights per day to & from GLA so they are more flexible to suit my schedule.

The thing is to be sure to compare like for like when looking at price as KLM include 1 piece of checked in baggage plus 1 cabin bag and 1 accessory. So for example you can take a suitcase for free (EasyJet cost £20 last time I looked) and a good size cabin bag and a laptop or camera bag for no extra charge. I've seen people being charged some ridiculous amount on EasyJet to check in bags at the gate, because their cabin bag was a fraction too big.

KLM also include a little snack - the breakfast snack can be quite acceptable, or you can have an alcoholic drink later in the day.

The big downside to KLM is if you want to fly one way and come back whenever or however suits you, then the price is hugely inflated over a return, to the point you'd be as well to buy a return and not use the return portion. E.g just checked the date for a flight GLA-AMS on the 16th June, £437 one way, £121 for a return, coming back on the 19th.

Sometimes I find reasonable KLM prices but when I change the flight times to morning/night the price jumps up. I fly from Edinburgh which has fairly decent flight times for easyjet anyway.

I recently booked a flight and I've managed to get an easyjet flexible flight for much cheaper than a KLM standard flight. I think these are great (I like to be able to change my trip dates/flight times) - you can change your flights over a period of 4 weeks as much as you like and don't get charged anything for it, even if the new seat is twice the original price. These also include cabin baggage, pick any seat and fast track through airport security (which is useful as there's always a big queue at my airport). Easyjet are also trialling a cool new thing just now: download boarding passes to your phone using their app rather than use paper, I'm gonna try it on my next trip :)

Just out of curiosity I checked the same flight dates as you for KLM flying from EDI to AMS, initially was £160 return but I changed the times to what suits me and the price jumped to £263 :\ Change the flights to flexible and the price jumps to £500 lol - like you said, hugely inflated.

I tried something similar with KLM early last year. I down loaded my return ticket before i left for the airport and when i tried using it at the airport i found i had to connect to the internet to us it, but the internet at the airport isn't all that good and i couldn't connect, so couldn't us it, so ended up having to print a return ticket from the self service machine.

It could be different with the easy jet app though, it would be good to here if it works.

I would have said that I preferred KLM over EasyJet. The reason being that the flight times from Edinburgh suited me better. The plane didn't land in Belgium and then drive to Amsterdam. I wasn't treated like cattle. I didn't have to elbow a pensioner in the face to get my seat preference and if booked in advance, the price difference was only ~£30.

I would have said that.....
But now, ever since KLM started to seriously cut their overheads, the service has gone downhill. I see they have started charging extra for a checked bag. Bah! Their schedule changes at random and the Edinburgh flight regularly lands on Schiphol's Belgium runway.
Easyjet now do allocated seating and their prices have crept up to be almost on a par with KLM (including the allocated seating supp.). I do feel like they have raised their game.
So to me, there is now very little difference between the two, I choose whoever is the cheapest on the day I book.

lol, it's not that bad :P

Although it's interesting to know that KLM don't always land on Schiphol's main runway, I thought that was supposed to be one of their big advantages.

I've flown KLM for over ten years now and recently I was thinking how their service had gone up (in comparison to a couple of years ago)!

I think that checked in luggage is still free for members of their frequent flyer programme (free to join).

bb69

That's interesting BillyBob. What aspects would you say have improved?
KLM are my airline of choice for long haul flights, especially as it routes me through Amsterdam (8~>).
I don't have anything bad to say about their long haul service. However, IMHO the Cityhopper routes are not what they once were. Maybe I'm getting grumpy with age. "Everything was better when I were a lad".
i.e. before they bought Airfrance.

I hadn't spotted that the checked baggage charge is waived for members of flying blue.
Thanks for that. I wonder how long it will stay like this.

I took a Cityhopper flight back in the Fall and one in the Spring and both times the cabin crew seemed happier and seemed to smile a lot. I know that this doesn't sound much, but in comparison to the attitude of some crew on European budget airlines it was quite noticeable. Also it seems that they have pensioned off some of the older crew that were doing short-haul, so some of the crew were quite tasty!
The one thing that I'm sure has changed on the short-haul flights is the food. The flights I took left mid morning and mid afternoon, I'm sure that previously for flights at that time they have served something like a sandwich, these times it was just a bag of peanuts!

Generally I get the impression that KLM are trying to reposition themselves in the airline market. They have realised that they aren't able to compete with the Middle Eastern airlines such as Etihad, Emirates etc on quality and won't be match the budget airlines on cost, so are trying to take some kind of middle ground.

bb69