A couple of weeks before the flight, VLM had phoned up to tell me that they had pulled one aircraft from the LCY-AMS route, and as a result, the flights I had chosen in both directions had been cancelled and merged with other flights. On the Friday, I'd been moved to a slightly later flight, and on the return, I'd been put on a flight an hour earlier.
(The last AMS-LCY-AMS of the day, leaving AMS at 1940 and London City at about 2040-ish have been pulled from the schedule. Shame, as I used to find those times quite convenient, but it's still left about 12 flights each way on the weekday schedule, it's not that much of a cut.)
Anyway, being generally drained, and a little unwell (being medicated at the moment, which is very unusual for me, I'm generally seldom sick enough to warrant a visit to the doctors), I decided on the Thursday to take it easy and see if I could change to a Sunday departure.
I got straight through to VLM's reservations centre - your call is forwarded to VLM HQ in Antwerp - only to be told they had an outage on their computer system! However, the helpful reservations agent gave me the direct dial number for the VLM ticket desk at LCY, who picked up within 3 rings, and changed me to the 13.15 Sunday flight for the princely sum of 25.
LCY on Sundays is quite tranquil, compared to the weekday morning and evening rushes that the small airport battles with, the airport doesn't actually open until 12 noon on a Sunday, and getting their by DLR makes it a doddle.
No queues at all for VLM check-in, everything sorted within a couple of minutes, though I got a sequence number somewhere in the 30s, and no window seats left. I noticed there were quite a lot of queues for the Air France check-in desks - they have recently expanded their services from LCY, adding several more (non-French) destinations, such as Milan and Geneva. There are also a lot more self-service check-in machines now, a number of Air France machines in the corridor leading from the DLR station, and a 'fan' of BA machines greeting you as you walk through the front door - somewhat blocking the way into the airport, if you ask me.
No lines at security either, though we did have a shoe carnival today, which is slightly unusual for LCY. Despite that, BAA could learn a thing or two from LCY's security department, which strikes me as well organised, with plenty of courteous staff.
Just after getting my shoes back on, and heading into the departure lounge, I noticed that I'd picked up a 20 minute delay on the flight - turned out the inbound aircraft was delayed leaving Amsterdam (later found out from the crew on the flight that this was caused by some problem with check-in at AMS), which gave me time to get some lunch from the decent airside restaurant.
The catering at LCY is still the same as normal, but the Restair/Carestel outlets are now the responsibility of HMSHost - the same people who operate the crap junk-food franchises in many other airports. For now, the restaurants are still the same, and are operated by 'Carestel on behalf of HMSHost', but I'm pretty certain the prices have gone up, obviously to pay for the extraneous layer of management and contract lawyers that have been inserted into the operation.
I really hope this isn't the beginning of the end for the halfway decent catering at LCY, to be replaced by a brace of bland and uninspiring, brand name franchises like Burger King or TGI Fridays. LCY owes some of it's unique style to these non-corporatised outlets.
One respectable gravadlax later, it was time to board, being called to the gate shortly after our Fokker 50, PH-DMT had landed on it's inbound leg. The aircraft was quickly turned around, and after the ground crew had helped a family with a baby to get on board and get settled, it was general boarding for the rest of us.
Unfortunately, I had seat 7C, which is an underwing seat, meaning no proper overhead bin space on the F50 - the bins are only any good for coats and very small bags. The people who sit either side tend to forget to help this, they don't carefully stow their stuff to make enough space - however a quick re-org of the bin overhead 8AC and there was space for my bag, and more! I'm trying to remember which airline I was on where there was actually a picture inside the the bin showing you how to make enough space!
Most of the VLM Amsterdam flights are now operated on behalf of VLM by an Eindhoven-based sister company called Denim Air, who specialise in ACMI/wet leases of aircraft to other operators, including Virgin Nigeria! Both VLM and Denim Air are owned by the same aviation entreprenur, Jaap Rosen Jacobsen - he's also been trying to revive Dutch aircraft manufacture, by trying to buy the rights to modernised versions of the Fokker 50, 70 and 100. After all, they are still solid, trustworthy aircraft.
Anyway, apart from the aircraft having a Dutch (PH-) registration, a logo near the door that says 'operated by Denim Air', and minor differences in the aircraft interior, there's no noticeable difference in the service. Aircraft dedicated to the VLM contract are painted in the VLM livery, while other Denim Air Fokkers that might get drafted to help are 'ghosts' - plain white aircraft with a small Denim Air logo next to the door.
We had a reasonably full flight, and I realised I was sat on the row in front of the family with the small baby - but on the opposite side of the aisle. I suddenly had a flashback to the 'Bitches' NRT flight! I needn't have worried though, this baby was placid and quiet for the entire flight, except for a couple of 'gurgles'.
Safety demo done, and boiled sweets to suck for takeoff distributed to the passengers - this has always been done by VLM (nice idea to help your ears 'pop'), we departed from Runway 10 about 20/25 minutes late, and headed for Clacton and the North Sea. Seatbelt sign was off fairly quickly, and the cabin service started. There was a choice of cheese or 'egg spread' (read egg mayonnaise') sandwiches offered, along with hot and cold drinks, all complimentary. Drinks were served in china and glass throughout.
It's good to see this has made a clear comeback from my last few flights. At one point, I remember you often saw plastic cups and glasses, and lots of pre-packed convenience food (like those Del Monte pre-packed bags of pre-sliced, damp, soggy fruit) - I believe this was during the tenure of Peter Kenworthy (a British airline manager, who had worked for people like BACX, and some other regionals). He's now left VLM, and it's good to see that catering is now 'back to basics', but with what seems to be a renewed emphasis on a simple product with good presentation.
Something was definitely 'lost in translation' by the Dutch caterer who makes VLMs sandwiches for the Amsterdam route, as beside the 'egg spread', my cheese sandwich was labelled 'Fresh roll, old cheese'! Of course, literal translation from 'oude kaas' - matured cheese! Wasn't a bad sandwich, for a simple Dutch 'broodje'. This was accompanied by a 'Spa rood' (that's what you say in Dutch to get a sparkling water: 'spar road' - it got a chuckle from the female flight attendant, that I knew it!), and a coffee.
Teas and coffees were refilled, and just after top of descent, Leonidas chocolates were offered.
The flight was smooth, and I got talking to the Dutch woman sat next to me (turns out she lived in London, but her work takes her back to the Netherlands often), as we descended across the North Sea, the ships getting larger, before crossing the Dutch coast. We then turned right and headed back out to sea! Turns out we were just being slotted into the arrival sequence, as this was shortly followed by a left turn near Valkenburg to line us up for an arrival on Runway 06 (also known as the 'Kaagbaan' to Schiphol locals), just a few minutes behind schedule, but fortunately the exit from this runway was almost adjacent to our gate, so no 20 minute taxi, which meant we were only about 10 minutes late arriving at the gate.
As is usual with Schiphol, there's always a bit of a hike from the gate to immigration, and there was a bit of a queue, even for EU passports - there were only two kiosks staffed. Schiphol operate an iris photography control system called Privium - you pay to register in this, and you get a card to operate the Privium gate, which looks a bit more space-age than the UK's Iris scheme gate!
As such, my bag was already out on the belt when I got to reclaim, and I headed straight out to get the train into town.
Nice easy flight, good service, and the only thing wrong with it was that it was a bit late. Given that I paid 130 for the round trip, including the 25 'misc charges' to change the departing flight, I've no complaints. VLM are a great little airline, with a good understanding of what their travellers appreciate, and know the meaning of 'nice little touches'.
Sure, the Fokker planes could do with a bit of an interior brightening up, they feel a little old fashioned, and apparently, VLM has started to do this to it's own F50 fleet, fitting new seats and updating the carpets and finishes. Hopefully the Denim aircraft on the VLM contract will benefit from this as well, eventually. (Denim had some of them flying for the UN in Afghanistan, apparently!)
Great to see that VLM are making a success of this route, with a little fine tuning to trim some of the 'fat' - I remember that very late AMS-LCY-AMS trip which has been withdrawn would often have only 10 passengers.
I can't believe I milked this much of a TR out of a 45 minute flight! [;)]
