From Amsterdam to Hong Kong: Buying Time in KLM Premium Comfort

KLM KL887 | Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) → Hong Kong (HKG) | 30 December 2025

This is the second part of my journey home, following Thirteen Hours in Amsterdam: A Deliberate Layover. Amsterdam had used up my layover in the best possible way. Back at Schiphol, the second leg offered a different kind of experiment: what, exactly, does £252 buy at 35,000 feet?

When I completed online check-in, KLM had randomly allocated me a window seat in Economy. On the Dreamliner, Economy is arranged 3–3–3. I have relatively long legs and rarely remain still for an entire flight: I get up to stretch, use the toilet, reach the overhead compartment and retrieve things from my bag. From a window seat at the side of a block of three, every movement requires negotiating past two other people. On a long-haul flight, that feels less like a seat assignment and more like a minor logistical commitment.

KLM offered me the option of moving to an aisle seat for £46. Yet an upgrade to Premium Comfort cost £252 and came with a much more comfortable 2–3–2 layout. I could choose an aisle seat, while even a window seat would leave only one person between me and the corridor. Once I compared £46 for a different position in the same cabin with £252 for an entirely different experience, the second number began to feel strangely persuasive.

For the first time, I was earning enough to pay for a premium cabin myself. I am happy to be frugal in parts of life that matter less to me, but coffee tasting, wine tasting and aviation are different. These are interests I genuinely value. Spending deliberately on the things one loves is not necessarily the opposite of thrift; perhaps it is the point of being careful elsewhere. I clicked the upgrade button with an excitement that was not entirely rational, but was completely sincere.

The upgrade changed more than the seat. KLM includes SkyPriority with Premium Comfort, and my onward boarding pass carried that status even though I had upgraded only the Amsterdam–Hong Kong sector. At Schiphol, it gave me access to the priority security lane, priority boarding and priority baggage handling—although I had no checked baggage on this trip.

The ordinary security queue appeared to be around 30 minutes. With the priority lane, I was through in roughly two. In that moment, I understood what people mean when they say that money can buy time. The upgrade had purchased more space in the air, but before I even boarded, it had already returned nearly half an hour of my day.

Schiphol itself struck me as competent rather than captivating. It functions well, but I could not identify a single feature that made the terminal particularly memorable. Even the Louis Vuitton boutique appeared surprisingly lightly staffed compared with the much higher staff-to-customer ratio I remembered in Osaka. The airport did, however, deliver one novelty I appreciated: boarding in priority group 2 and walking past the main queue. After years of waiting for my group to be called, the simple act of boarding early felt unexpectedly satisfying.

The cabin crew greeted me warmly, and I finally settled into a premium cabin paid for with my own money. The separate Premium Comfort cabin felt calmer immediately. KLM’s Dreamliner layout offered an average seat pitch of 97 cm, a wider seat, a movable leg- and footrest, and a 13.3-inch entertainment screen—not the 10 inches I had first remembered. There were 110V, USB-A and USB-C charging options, headphones, a reading lamp and a small hook for my jacket.

The jacket hook was almost comically minor, yet it mattered. So did the individual reading lamp. I often use flights to type notes or organise my thoughts, and a focused light allowed me to work without illuminating the space around me. The recline and leg rest were controlled by buttons, and even when the passenger in front fully reclined, I remained comfortable.

This is where a premium product often succeeds: not through one spectacular feature, but through the removal of many small irritations. Economy is designed to move a passenger from one city to another. Premium Comfort seemed to recognise that, for the next twelve hours, the passenger also had to live in the seat.

The printed menu was another small but meaningful premium-cabin touch. It set out three main-course choices, a composed appetiser and side dish, a stroopwafel dessert, the single breakfast selection and a proper drinks list rather than leaving the meal as a surprise under a foil lid.

I began with KLM’s Royal Blue Legend mocktail, made with lemon, ginger and spirulina. It was pleasant and mildly refreshing, though not quite the revelation its electric-blue appearance seemed to promise.

Dinner was genuinely good. I chose the tender chicken thigh with red Thai curry sauce, beans, mushrooms, spring onions and lime-scented rice rolls topped with toasted coconut. When the menu described the chicken as tender, it was actually tender when served—an achievement that should not be underestimated at cruising altitude. The artichoke-and-yellow-pepper appetiser was also well judged, and the presentation felt substantially more considered than a standard Economy tray.

After I asked, the friendly crew also offered me a spare Economy meal, which created an accidental side-by-side comparison. The sweet-and-sour pork was respectable by airline standards: the meat and sauce worked reasonably well. The rice base, however, weakened the dish. If the intention was a Hong Kong-style meal, plain Thai jasmine rice would have allowed the sauce to do the work. The vegetables felt indistinct, while the starter was too acidic and texturally awkward to be appetising. Its presentation in a plastic container made the difference between the two cabins even more visible.

The comparison was instructive. KLM clearly had the ability to produce a stronger meal; the Premium Comfort tray demonstrated that. The reality is that Economy catering must operate within tighter limits of budget, space, weight and scale. The gap was not simply cosmetic. It showed how much easier it is to optimise food when the airline has a little more room—financially as well as physically.

Dessert was stroopwafel ice cream—an appropriately Dutch bridge between Amsterdam and Hong Kong. It was simple, sweet and pleasingly on-theme after a day that had already involved an oversized stroopwafel in the city.

The most memorable part of the flight, however, came from the passenger beside me. She did not speak fluent English, and I initially assumed she was Dutch. Then I discovered that she spoke Spanish and was from Ecuador. I immediately seized the chance to brush up my Spanish, while she practised simple English with me.

As we spoke, I learnt that she was also a doctor, working in general internal medicine. She had already spent more than a day travelling via Amsterdam to reach Hong Kong, where her daughter was living and working. It was one of those conversations that aviation makes possible: two doctors from different continents, communicating in a mixture of second languages, meeting because two long journeys happened to share a pair of seats.

Later, I discovered that the self-service galley stocked San Pellegrino sparkling water. How posh, I thought. It was an absurdly small detail, but somehow perfectly consistent with the cabin. After that, I finally slept.

Breakfast consisted of smoked salmon, sliced Beemster cheese, cream cheese, salad, bread and rice pudding with mixed berries. It was not extraordinary, and there was only one option, but it was a clear elevation from Economy. Smoked salmon with cream cheese carries the unmistakable promise of a respectable middle-class breakfast, even at 35,000 feet.

Still, my loyalty at breakfast remains difficult to dislodge. When flying towards Hong Kong, I find it hard not to look forward to the dim sum breakfast offered by Cathay Pacific. KLM’s version was perfectly acceptable; it simply did not become a reason to book the airline by itself.

The Dreamliner gradually descended towards Hong Kong International Airport. One crew member told me that, after arriving on Wednesday afternoon, they would not operate the return flight until Friday evening. We also spoke about the destinations most popular among the crew; Cape Town, the United States and parts of South America featured prominently. It was a brief reminder that the route I was treating as an occasion was, for them, part of a working life organised across continents.

Overall, the KLM experience was better than the airline’s middling ratings had led me to expect. There is an obvious caveat: I was assessing it from Premium Comfort, not Economy, and a better seat has a way of improving one’s view of the entire airline.

Was the £252 upgrade worth it? On this flight, yes. It was not Business Class, and not every detail was exceptional. Yet set against £46 merely to move to an Economy aisle seat, the additional space, calmer cabin, SkyPriority, stronger meal service and better chance of sleeping made the upgrade feel worthwhile. Premium Comfort occupied its intended middle ground convincingly.

Amsterdam had turned an awkward connection into a compact city break. KL887 turned the second leg into a small lesson in deliberate spending. Sometimes money buys space. Sometimes it buys time. On this journey, the upgrade bought both.