KLM To Launch Premium Comfort Class On Flights To South Africa In 2023

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has presented its new Premium Comfort Class, an intermediate cabin offering more space, luxury, service options, comfort and privacy than Economy Class, at lower prices than World Business Class. The new Premium Comfort Class allows KLM to more closely meet the needs and wishes of leisure and business travellers.

Premium Comfort is an entirely new inflight class with its own cabin, offering a new type of seats as well as distinctive service and catering concepts. Depending on the aircraft type, the capacity of Premium Comfort Class will vary from 21 to 28 seats, which will be wider than standard seats, offering more legroom, a larger screen and a footrest. Premium Comfort seats can also recline further than Economy Class seats. The reconfiguration of aircraft cabins will be carried out by specialists at KLM Engineering & Maintenance at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

“We have great expectations for this new Premium Comfort Class, based on extensive market research. The new class will meet the wishes of business passengers as well as leisure travellers, strengthening KLM’s standing as a global network carrier offering an appealing and varied range: World Business Class, Premium Comfort and Economy Class. It also reaffirms our partnership with Delta Air Lines, Air France and Virgin Atlantic on North Atlantic routes, where we can now combine all products on all routes.” – Boet Kreiken, executive vice president of KLM Customer Experience.

Catering
Premium Comfort also has a distinctive catering concept. On intercontinental services, one or two hot meals will be served, depending on the duration of the flight. There will always be a choice of meat, fish or vegetarian dishes. After the meal, passengers will be offered coffee, tea, liqueur and ice cream. A variety of snacks and cocktails will also be served between meals, which will be largely selected from those that were previously popular in World Business Class.

Lightweight and reusable
The new seats in Premium Comfort Class were designed by Collins Aerospace together with specialists at KLM Customer Experience. Apart from their elegant design and comfort features, the seats are also lighter than previous designs. Similar care was taken in selecting catering materials for Premium Comfort. They are either reusable (special cutlery, bowls and plates made of lightweight polypropylene) and those that are not reusable are made of recycled PEF. All materials were carefully assessed in terms of circularity and weight, without detracting from aesthetic features.

Service
The Premium Comfort Class experience will start at the airport, where passengers will have more flexible baggage arrangements and SkyPriority privileges, including preferential check-in and boarding.

Booking
The first aircraft equipped with Premium Comfort Class will operate on routes to North America. It is anticipated that passengers will be able to book Premium Comfort to a growing range of destinations from the end of the July 2022.

South African passengers will be one of the first in the world to enjoy Premium Comfort Class when it officially launches on routes to and from Amsterdam from next year. “We are very excited for the launch of the Premium Comfort offering launching on South African routes next year,” Wilson Tauro, Country Manager: Southern African Region at Air France-KLM says. “We strive to give our South African travellers the best in-flight experience and we look forward to having both our business and leisure travellers experience this game-changing new offering soon.”