KLM launches its first fully-flat business class seat

Dutch airline KLM unveiled pictures of its new fully-flat business class seat last week, joining a growing trend of European airlines finally following the lead set by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic over 15 years ago.

All 22 of KLM’s Boeing 747 aircraft will be fitted with new seat between July this year and April 2014.  

KLM will then move on to the Boeing 777 fleet, so for a chance of getting the new seat later in the year you want to focus your bookings – where there is a choice – on 747 routes.

The seat is reportedly based on the same one being installed by Lufthansa, but KLM has been more generous with the spacing between rows.  

The bed will be 207cm long (9cm more than Lutfhansa) and, unlike Lufthansa, the seats are not angled inwards so passengers do not have to share a footrest whilst sleeping.  KLM is also installing a larger TV than the one being used by Lufthansa.

The number of business seats per plane is reduced from 42 to 35 with the new layout.

Collecting Flying Blue miles suddenly becomes a little (just a little!) more attractive.

Details of the new seats can be found on the KLM website here.

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (December 2021)

Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card.  However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.  These are:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with two free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 30,000 Flying Blue miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 5,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 5,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Blue mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.