Update 18 Aug 2010: KLM contacted me after reading this post, see the end of the article

I have a love / hate relationship with KLM. I am happy with the many upgrades that they give me and with the way their Twitter team works. But there are also a lot of things that KLM needs to improve and that I complain about on Twitter when I encounter them (some examples: a website in China that is often not working because it seems to be hosted outside the Great Firewall, continuous problems with their customer service & call center in China, delays on every single daytime flight from Shanghai to Amsterdam, rude/non-service oriented flight attendants).

On Twitter I sometimes get the question why I still fly KLM. The answer is simply because they have the monopoly on the route Shanghai-Amsterdam, there are no other airlines with direct flights. If you fly regularly for short trips you don’t want to have the additional hassle (and time!) of stop-overs. Many of my Dutch business friends here feel exactly the same, the topic of frustration with KLM often comes up over dinner or a beer. There is so much KLM can learn from airlines like Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines, but they seem not to care. The flights to Shanghai are always fully booked so they probably feel there is no need to improve their service.

Yesterday I encountered another typical example of why I have a problem with KLM. I dropped off my luggage for the delayed flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai. We had 4 suitcases: 2 small trolleys of around 10 kg, one bigger of 18 kg and one of 24.5 kg. Our total luggage allowance was 46 kg each for me and my wife, 23 kg for Scott and 10 kg for Elaine, so no problem at all I would say. No, not for KLM: The lady at the baggage drop off told me the 24.5 kg suitcase was too heavy and I would have to pay EUR 100 to check it in. The 46 kg allowance has to be split into 2 times 23 kg. Why? She had no idea, but those are the rules.

The maximum weight of a suitcase is 32 kg, just like at many other airlines. But if one of your suitcases is more than 23 kg, even if your allowance is much higher, KLM will charge you. This is ridiculous of course and I see it as one more way for the airline to make money off its customers. That they also scare their customers away is something they seem to forget.

To solve the problem we opened our suitcases at the check-in desk, took out 3 pairs of jeans and put them in another suitcase. Nothing changed in the total weight of the suitcases, so I felt it was a totally useless thing to do. But rules are rules at KLM, even if nobody knows why. Even if you are one of their best customers (I am a platinum elite member) and already paid a ridiculous EUR 3700 for 2 economy class tickets for 2 adults, plus a baby and a toddler.

The check-in lady then hoped we would have too much hand luggage and asked us to put those bags on the scale. Bad luck for her, because we were easily within the limits, so KLM could not charge or punish us for this. Not sure if this is a new KLM policy, but this is the first time ever that I am asked to weigh my hand luggage at check-in.

Many airlines are not so strict with weight, if you have 2-3 kilos extra they won’t balk, some even have policies that the first 5 kgs are no problem (I learned this on Twitter when I tweeted about this yesterday). But the lady at the KLM desk told me that she gets into trouble within 24 hours if she allows a suitcase that is above 23 kilo without an additional payment. Is that really the way KLM instructs its staff? Can a staff member not make some decisions on his or her own like in the past?

I will file a formal complaint with KLM about this. I would like to know if these are really their policies and would like to understand what the reasoning behind them is. I wonder if KLM management has any idea what the results of their policies are and how their regular customers perceive the airline. Maybe they will think about it and eventually change this rule. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but they also just reversed their new regulation to pay for check-in golf bags after customer complaints.

Update: KLM contacted me after reading this post. They explained that there are additional costs for suitcases of between 23 kg and 32 kg (32 kg is still the maximum weight) because of labor legislation, therefore the price increase. They suggest to book overweight in advance, then you get a 20% discount. I thanked them for their reply and told them to inform ground staff about this, that would solve a lot of problems. Also I said that you normally don’t know the weight of your suitcases until a few hours before departure, so booking overweight with a discount is not a solution. Personally I think that KLM should be more flexible for (at least) business class and for its Elite members, just like some other airlines do. KLM has to become more service oriented, not only on board but also on the ground.

The past week I spent in The Netherlands with my family for a short vacation (we’ll be back in China this weekend). Work has been quite intense over the past couple of months and I felt I really needed to be away from the office for a while. I therefore decided to take it really easy this week and not travel all around the country like I normally do on holidays in my home country. Except for a day trip to Gent (Belgium) and a trip to the zoo in Arnhem we stayed at my parents place the whole vacation.

The trip started off with a 4 hour delay. The daytime KLM flight from Shanghai to Amsterdam is always delayed, but normally just 1-2 hours. Luckily the KLM called me a few hours before departure so we went to the airport a bit later (they only called a few people I found out, we were the only ones at check-in 2 hours before departure! Thanks KLM). The flight itself was not easy, taking care of 2 small kids on a 12 hour flight is quite a task. I was very happy when we were finally at my parents place. The kid’s jet lags didn’t make the first days easy either, they were sleepy (or not sleepy at all) at the wrong times.

I read a lot, among others the book Nina, about Dutch business woman Nina Brink. She is the former CEO of World Online which listing at the stock exchange was a disaster and that lost many people tons of money. Not many people seem to like her and now I understand why: if only 10% of the book is true I would stay away from her as far as possible in business. The book describes her as a billionaire criminal in business disguise who sues everybody that she doesn’t like. Scary. The book is in Dutch, so most of your won’t be able to read it, but this is the link to the book.

I also read The Passage by Justin Cronin (Amazon site, official site for the book). I wasn’t sure whether I would like this kind of book (I never read, nor like, horror or SF) but bought it as an ebook for my Kindle a few weeks ago because it was chosen as one of Amazon’s books of the month. It’s a huge book (784 pages in the print version) but for me it was worth every page of it – and when I finished it I found out that this is only part one of a future trilogy! I am not going to review it here (over 600 people already did that on Amazon) but I loved it, once I started reading it I couldn’t stop.

Of course I also did a bit of work, but I tried to reduce it to max. 2-3 hours a day (my wife had to work a lot harder than I did this time…). One day I tried to keep my laptop off the whole day but I realized I felt less relaxed than when I would check my mails every 2 hours or so. I guess that’s the curse of modern business life, but I don’t feel it impacted this vacation as much as some other vacations over the past years. I feel I am almost stress free after a week here and can start next week relaxed and with some new business (strategy) ideas, but without hundreds of unread emails.

I am happy that I could spend a lot of time with the kids over the past days. I walked a lot with Elaine in and around the house (she loves to walk barefoot on the grass) and she lost her fear for walking on her own. She could already walk alone, but she felt much safer if somebody would hold her hand. Now she just gets up and walks off, so we have to watch her a lot more.

Scott changed his language completely from Chinese to Dutch in a few days. Even in his dreams he is now talking in Dutch! He can translate well now, if I tell him a word in Dutch he translates it for me into Chinese. And Elaine now answers in Chinese if you ask her something in Chinese (saying simple things like ? or ?), and in Dutch if you speak Dutch to her. A week ago she only understood Chinese!

We took the kids to Burgers Zoo in Arnhem one day. I had not been there in about 25 years and it had completely changed, it’s a great zoo. I am not a big fan of zoos, but if you design a zoo this is the kind of zoo you should build. No cages but open air areas for most animals and huge domes to simulate a tropical rainforest, a desert and the ocean. The kids really enjoyed it, especially Scott who knew most of the animals by name in Dutch, English and Chinese. After the zoo we went to my sister’s new house close to Sonsbeek Park in Arnhem for a late lunch and a bottle of wine.

Tuesday I went to Ghent (Gent in Dutch) in Belgium with my dad, where we had dinner and drinks with friends. I had never been to Ghent, so we left home a bit earlier to do some sightseeing. Ghent is a beautiful old city, it was much nicer than I had expected. The atmosphere is one of enjoying life: people wear nice clothes and everybody seemed to be relaxing with beer and wine on one of the many outdoor terraces in the city. I felt at home right away!

Today we made a ‘cruise’ on the river Vecht in Ommen with the family. Although my grandparents had lived in Ommen since long before I was born and my parents lived here since 1995 (and I lived here for a while during my high school years) I had never taken this cruise. For some reason some things you just don’t do when you live somewhere. It was a very nice boat ride, not just for the kids but also for us. From the water a place always looks different. Among others I took a last look at my grandparents house (not visible from the road, but visible from the river). My grandma passed away last year and the house has now been sold, so I will never go there anymore.

This vacation was very different from the ones we had before the kids were born. Less relaxing than our former tropical beach holidays or vacations in Southern Europe (also because of work I suppose) but more rewarding as well. Spending more time with our kids is something I would like to do more regularly, it’s so nice to see how they develop and to have real conversations with them. It was also nice to be at my parents place, to drink good wines and eat good food. All in all an enjoyable week with good memories.

As usual I took a lot of pictures, you can see many of them here.

Tudou just announced that we closed a USD 50 million dollar round, led by Singapore’s Temasek. Below the official press release.

Tudou