KLM Teesside – Amsterdam Report

Last week I told I’d be going on my first F100 flight this weekend – well the weekend has about been and gone now so I thought I’d bring you up to speed with what happened.

Teesside Airport had its usual array of aircraft when I arrived on Friday morning, an Eastern J31 ready for the Aberdeen run, a Skyservice A320 ready for the MyTravel flight to Ibiza, a BMI Fokker 100 awaiting its turn on the Heathrow service, and, finally G-UKFF, our KLM 1530 flight to Amsterdam, another Fokker 100.

G-UKFF clearly was still UK registered but had been re-branded as KLM Cityhopper. Inside the cabin, cityhopper titles were also evident. The flight itself was really quite uneventful with nothing to report – cloudy all the way but smooth for the entire 50 minutes. Inflight service comprised of a sandwich, which at 6.30 in the morning, I didn’t particularly fancy.

On returning to Schipol on the Sunday afternoon, a great selection of aircraft were on show. The usual KLM 737s (I’m still trying to distinguish between the NG and the classic but to little avail – I even took up wysiwyg’s tip of looking at the engines but I couldn’t see enough aircraft head on to be able to tell if I’d mastered a new art), KLM 744’s, KLM MD-11s, and all Cityhopper variants from F50, F70 and F100. Northwest had a 742 lying around and a couple of DC10s, far fewer than when I arrived as most of them would have headed back west at this time. Easyjet 73Gs were visible, a BMI A321 and BMI Baby 735. Also saw plenty of Transavia 737s amongst other aircraft.

The flight back was on KLM 1537, G-UKFM. This aircraft was still in full KLM UK markings, both inside and out. Again, 50 minutes and a baguette later we arrived safely back in Teesside with nothing really to report.