Trip Report
In October 2025, I flew business class from Zagreb to Bangkok with a connection in Amsterdam. The Zagreb - Amsterdam leg was operated by Croatia Airlines, and the Amsterdam - Bangkok leg by KLM. This is my first flight review, so please don’t judge too harshly 🙂
Let’s probably start with the financial side of this trip. I purchased the tickets using points that I earn with my Bank of America card. Under their rules, the ticket is bought through their travel portal, and for the airline it appears not as an award ticket, but as a ticket purchased with cash. I made a single booking for Zagreb–Bangkok and Hong Kong–Zagreb for 243,136 points, or $3,039.20 in cash equivalent. In this review, I will describe only the flight experience to Southeast Asia, so the cost can be divided by two to get a rough idea of the price of the journey described here.
Now let’s move on to the experience itself. I arrived at the airport about two hours before departure. After checking in my baggage, the agent at the counter also wanted to weigh my carry-on, and it turned out to weigh 11 kg, which she claimed exceeded the allowance. After checking the ticket rules, it turned out that my fare allowed carry-on baggage with a total weight of up to 18 kg, without specifying a maximum weight for each individual item. In the end, I was allowed to board with my carry-on. However, the agent’s communication was quite rude and tactless, which is generally not okay, especially for so-called premium service.
After the check-in counter, I proceeded to security and then to the business lounge. After security, they had just installed an exhibition display at Zagreb Airport to provide a bit of entertainment for travelers before departure. Overall, I really like the airport: it is quite compact and convenient.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of the lounge, but I think it has already been shown on this resource several times. The lounge itself is also pleasant and comfortable. It has a limited selection of drinks and food, but overall it is enough for the hour to hour and a half that you can spend there comfortably while waiting for your flight.
On that day, flight OU 450 was operated by an Airbus A220-300 with the registration 9A-CAI. This is one of the first new aircraft received by Croatia Airlines as part of its transition to a single-aircraft-type fleet.
This time, I had seat 1A. Croatia Airlines has a standard European business class, with the same seating configuration as economy and the adjacent seat blocked off for passengers. During the flight, Croatia offers a small selection of soft drinks, as well as a lunch box with a set of Croatian snacks. Overall, it is one of the weakest European business class products among European carriers.
After arriving in Amsterdam, I had a 6.5-hour layover, which I spent in the KLM business lounge. At the entrance to the lounge, guests are greeted by the traditional liquor-filled houses, which long-haul passengers receive from the airline as a souvenir gift.
As a rule, the KLM lounge is quite crowded. Sometimes you even have to wait a little to find a seat, so I prefer using the bar on the second floor, as it is usually easier to find a free spot there.
After a long wait for my next flight, I headed to board flight KL 843 from Amsterdam to Bangkok. On that day, the flight was operated by a 21-year-old Boeing 777-200ER with the registration PH-BQB, featuring KLM World Business Class in a 1-2-1 configuration. The main difference of KLM World Business Class on the Boeing 777 is the presence of a door, which adds extra privacy during the flight.
This time, I was assigned seat 4G in the middle of the cabin. If you are traveling alone, there is also an option to raise the divider between the seats for additional privacy. If you are traveling together with a friend or partner, leaving the divider down creates the impression of a suite on board for the two of you.
KLM offers several welcome drinks to choose from, and I opted for champagne.
KLM also provides passengers with an amenity kit, which consists of several useful items for the flight. KLM positions itself as an eco-friendly airline, so at some point they moved away from the gift pouches typically offered in business class and switched to textile ones instead. Previously, these bags could be transformed into a convenient shopper tote that could be reused several times, but now they provided some strange sack that looks like Santa Claus’s bag, and I honestly can’t imagine how it could be reused 😕
During the flight, passengers are served two meals, with menus created by various renowned restaurants and chefs from the Netherlands. This time, our menu was prepared by the restaurant De Librije.
KLM prepared its safety briefing in the form of an animated cartoon, for which ceramic tiles were hand-painted in a traditional Dutch style.
After takeoff, drinks and small appetizers were offered before the main meal service.
For the main meal, I chose the Surf & Turf smoked Asian-style beef tartlet with vadouvan-spiced prawns, lime cream, pickled mushrooms, mustard seeds and haricots verts as a starter, and the fish option — duo of sole fillet with shrimps in curry-langoustine sauce, served with potato gratin, soybeans and cherry tomato — as my main course.
For dessert, I went with the pear mousse with a quenelle of yuzu and pear, airy coffee crémeux, cinnamon ganache with sweet caramel sauce. Many travelers note that KLM’s food presentation leaves something to be desired, although the dishes themselves taste quite good. I share this opinion: it feels like the presentation lacks refinement, and this time that was especially true of the main course.
After dinner, I reclined the seat into a fully flat 180-degree bed and fell asleep for seven to eight hours.
Shortly before landing, breakfast was offered.
After breakfast, I was also invited to choose one of the little houses to take home as a souvenir.
Overall, flying with KLM usually leaves me with mixed impressions. On the one hand, it is a fairly strong and relatively budget-friendly product within the Air France–KLM group, aimed at travelers who value their budget. The flight is usually comfortable, and the food and drinks provided on board are also quite reasonable for the price. However, the service from the crew is fairly unpretentious.
If you want something between service rounds, or, for example, an extra drink during the meal, you can often notice the cabin crew rolling their eyes and carrying out their duties as if they were doing you a favor. In my opinion, a product called World Business Class should come with more welcoming and warmer service, but that is not what you get. KLM should think about improving its onboard service, because Air France is head and shoulders above it.
I hope you enjoyed my review. I plan to keep writing, so feel free to leave your feedback in the comments - it will help me improve my flight review writing skills 🙂
Share your travel experience by submitting a trip report to exyu@exyuaviation.com
Nice trip report, thanks!
ReplyDeleteI've lived in the Netherlands for many years now, and I can tell you that the cabin crew rolling their eyes is a prime example of Dutch mentality. They use body language (or sometimes small seemingly-innocent comments) to indirectly judge you and put you down. And also, they are just very stingy as a nation. Both of these traits came to light when you ordered that extra glass of wine :)
This is not to excuse KLM, of course. As a world airline, they have to tell their employees to leave this attitude at home.
The Dutch are not stingy, they are frugal and they're very big on directness. I much prefer it to the fakery of the Americans, Brits, Chinese and Middle Eastern crews.
DeleteWhy do you mistake politeness for fakeness? Professionalism? I can’t stand that comparison. Frugality is not what this was and “directness” has no place in the service sector. “Nisva krave skup pasla“ as we say in Slovenian. I can’t stand it when people act unprofessional and rude, and then some in our region praise it as “directness”. It’s rudeness, a lack of basic human integrity, and taking customers for granted.
DeleteAnon 10:30, they are frugal, but they are also stingy af.
DeleteNice report thanks
ReplyDeleteExcellent trip report! Especially cause it's your first one.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the luggage weighing procedure is a mismatch between Croatia Airlines fare rules and KLM fare rules? Croatia Airlines always weighs luggage and checks in heavy bags (for free)
What is the reason of OU weighing hand luggage (serious question)? Cabin security?
DeleteBright and shiny?
DeleteNice food selection. In my opinion, this door looks sick...It's not feeling like you are in a suite, but like you are constrained in a box at 10000m..
ReplyDeleteGreat report, well done.
ReplyDelete