KLM recently announced upcoming cabin modifications which will cater more to their premium clientele, as well as hopefully improve customer relations with their flight attendants.

It’s always interesting reading airline press releases, as they tend to sugar coat the most basic of changes. KLM might have outdone themselves this time when it comes to sugar coating, adding the cake, ice cream, coffee, biscuit and rum cocktail to the equation.

Here a brief snippet before we get into the meat of what is really changing.

“KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announces new service concept for intercontinental flights: more room for personal contact and an increase in the number of seats.”

“KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announces a new service concept for both World Business Class and Economy Class. By organising the work differently, there will be more room for personal contact with passengers. At the same time, work on the cabin layout of the intercontinental fleet is also underway, which will result in an increase in the number of seats. With these changes, KLM aims to respond to passenger wishes and make optimal use of the available space in the cabin. The modifications will be implemented from 2027.”

Credit: Simple Flying/Flickr | CC BY 2.0 Generic

More premium heavy seating

KLM gave a very vague preview of what to expect, but thankfully Luchtvaartnieuws was able to get clearer insight into the matter. In short, KLM plans to adjust their cabin configuration to include more business class and premium economy seating on their intercontinental fleet of Boeing 777s and 787s.


With a finite space to work with, KLM is making room for these new seats by reducing food cart storage space, and trimming its Economy Comfort offering. By stacking their food trays differently, they are now able to store 84 meals per unit rather than just 54, allowing them to reduce their galley storage space.

KLM will also reduce the number of extra legroom economy seats (branded Economy Comfort) in order to make more room for its PE and business class products. The final layouts have not been confirmed yet, but here are a few examples.

Their Boeing 787-10s will see an extra row of Premium Economy seats being added, bringing the total from 28 to 35. Depending on the aircraft type, they expect to outfit as many as 40 PE seats on their larger Boeing 777s (I assume the 777-300ER most likely).

The Boeing 787-9 will also see two additional business class seats being added, most likely due to the reduction in galley space.

Credit: KLM

The press release also mentions the addition of more economy seats. They say, “the new layout also allows KLM to add more seats in Economy Class.” I suspect that this is more a technicality as they will reduce the legroom of its Economy Comfort seats, bringing it to regular economy standard. While the total number of seats in that section “may” be less, technically there will be more regular economy seats as a result.

The airline also promised that legroom in its other classes (business, PE and regular economy) wouldn’t be compromised to facilitate the change.

Improved cabin experience

KLM is continuing its collaboration with Dutch designer Marcel Wanders to improve its business class experience with updated tableware and food presentation. Economy passengers will also benefit from the re-introduction of welcome drinks, “which allows for an additional moment of interaction.”

They also aim to deliver hot meals in a more timely manner, and I assume this is thanks to the more densely packed trolleys resulting in them having to spend less time returning to the galley.

Putting aside the “masterclass” of a PR piece, I’d say this is actually a pretty good update, and even with the planned reduction in Economy Comfort seating. In my opinion, it makes more sense putting in proper Premium Economy seats given that their 777s and 787s aren’t exactly flying short haul routes.

As mentioned before, the final configurations are still being worked on, and will be implemented from 2027.