RE: are budget airlines trying to take over europe !!!
The service and also the flight ex-MAN are dreadful. I think KLM’s UK operations are run by KLMuk, which used to be Air UK.
About a year ago, I flew Humberside-AMS with KLMuk, on a very comfy F50. Everyone was friendly and helpful. I think it must be a combination of awful aircraft (F100) and a problem with recruiting quality people at MAN.
The problem, like has been said, is with connecting through AMS on long haul flights. I fly to JNB often, because I connect through there to Ndola on either SAA (ERJ-135) or Inter Air (B727-100). I think I’ll go MAN-LHR-JNB next time with BA or even MAN-CDG-JNB with AF, because they are reasonably good in my experience.