Turns out, offering dry cheese sandwiches won’t save you from touching down on the list of worst European airlines. Actually, it might just be what lands you there.
According to a comprehensive evaluation by Flightright, KLM is the fifth-worst airline in 2025.
And no, this isn’t simply based on how many people were seen frowning as they stepped off a flight.
How did they measure this?
Flightright carried out its evaluation based on three factors: reliability, payment behaviour, and customer satisfaction.
In order to measure reliability, Flightright looked at airlines’ delay and cancellation figures. Seeing as KLM has recently been battling with its ground staff to prevent strikes, this doesn’t bode well.
When determining payment behaviour, the evaluation looked at how quickly airlines compensated their customers after facing cancellation or delay.
READ MORE | €6 for a cheese sandwich: Your KLM flight might be about to get more expensive onboard
Flightright then surveyed its customers using seven questions to measure customer satisfaction with each airline.
Each of the three factors was scored out of five stars, and the results were used to compile an index of Europe’s 20 worst airlines.
Just how bad was it?
And how did KLM perform? Much like their slightly soggy in-flight snacks: lukewarm.
The airline achieved two stars out of five for reliability, four stars out of five for its payment behaviour, but an average of 2.15 stars for customer satisfaction — landing it with an overall score of 2.72.
Turns out charging high prices doesn’t necessarily mean offering high-quality service. Even an occasional royal pilot can’t save their ratings.
Are you surprised by this rating — or not at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
That is shocking.
I am Dutch..before i immigrated i flew KLM for years.
Of coursw it has been years ago.
I remember KLM was always in the top 5 worldwide.
If KLM went out business, it would be considered a blessing on the general public.
Yes they sell ticket .. with normal price later you reliaze you have to pay extra for the suitcase ….bad
My last experience with KLM was mostly positive. We flew for Stockholm. The flight was on time, but the food subpar. Also, both our bags were damaged (not sure whether its airlines fault), but we were fully compensated for both without trouble.
I flew with KLM from Soul to Amsterdam in 2024 after flying in from Australia. I was very impressed with the economy seating,cabin crew & meals
I always fly KLM transatlantic and I am happy. If employees strike than that’s not KLM’s fault. Like now thete are railway strikes in Holland because employees want more money, which the company can’t pay. People have become egotistical and take their jobs and future of their company for granted…which is an illusion.
I am not surprised. Ever since the “take over”/merger with AirFrance, klm have been on a downhill slide. Slowly but surely AirFrance is choking KLM and squeezing them out of the market.
I’m not surprised. For a long time KLM is not an airline of choice anymore. They downgraded economy a few years ago and you can upgrade to the old economy class for a lot of money. The food is of bad quality and they now introduced an extra fee for bringing a carry on into the plain. My flights over the world are with Emirates, Turkish airlines, Singapore airlines or other companies. They are all better, free luggage, better food, often more legs space and above all cheaper. I am Dutch and I regret that under the new management KLM will be not the choice of people anymore.
Often flew KLM transatlantic. Never had a negative experience. Beats Delta and American.
I fly KLM about 16 times this year and overall I’m satisfied but lately some delays. Most of the crew is friendly and sometimes KLM is cheaper than the so called price fighters like Easyjet and Ryanair due to all kinds of additional charges. KLM should do everything though to improve in the future.
Reliability goes down when staff strike. But never the less I do like flyingKLM. My worst are Easyjet and Delta, but not European. I’m Dutch so I like the cheese sandwich. Just flew Lufthansa and Air Canada, old plane with Air Canada, but nice staff at both planes, but the food, not that good🫣.
Maybe the writer of this article should actually read the survey they’re quoting. The customer satisfaction section only asks questions about how the airline handled a delay or cancellation, nothing about the actual flight itself (including the cheese sandwich + drniks that are offered for free, other airlines have you past for everything).
The study has more weird choices, such as the score for delays and cancellations. For delays there are just 2 categories: less than 15 minutes and 15 or more. Now I may be weird, but I think there’s a massive difference between departing 15-20 minutes late and 3 hours late. Same for cancellations, if it’s the day of or the day before, that’s a major issue. If it’s 4 months out, it’s not great, but I can probably work around it.
Then the customer satisfaction asks if the airline offered a hotel after cancellation or delay. Well, the answer would be “no” if the cancellation happened well before the flight or the delay wasn’t overnight.
It just seems a deeply flawed survey focused specifically on the airline’s performance related to cancellations and delays, pretending to be an overall measure of airlines performance. It literally does not look at anything else at all. And is then a pretty badly set up survey to even measure their focus subjects of cancellation and delay.
I travel frequently for work, and have had to for over 20 years..I have flown a lot of airlines…Once you get on a plane I find KLM quite pleasant. But the steps leading up to the point are what annoy me…From my experience KLMs customer service in general is sub-standard. Their policies are inflexible, and their frequent flyer and “loyalty” program is really infuriating and unacceptable. So bad that I will now go out of my way to not fly them…There are no advantages if you fly frequently within Europe. I moved to Holland 3 years ago after flying mostly Star Alliance airlines. Since I take 7-10 flights a year for work I switched to flying KLM to be loyal to the airlines of “my country” thinking, like other airlines I would start to get some frequent flyer benefits. Boy was I wrong..by the 2nd year I had flown enough to earn a necessary benefit, which was to be in #3 boarding group, as opposed to #5. This is important to me because I rarely check a bag. Being in the last boarding group means there is often not overhead space and KLM often requires the 5’s to check their bags…The next year I flew 8 times…but apparently I didn’t fly far enough for them because I was a few points short of maintaining that #3 Silver status and they demoted me back to #5 Explorer boarding group…I mean couldn’t they at least put me in #4? I suddenly had no more privileges than someone who flies the airline one time. You’d think 8 flights would mean something…Before I was informed about the demotion, I had already booked 9 flights for this year…so here I am at the lowest level with numerous flights coming up. I seriously dislike them…. The other thing they do that really annoys me and makes me grateful I’m not in the #1 boarding group is that when they get people lined up to board there is almost always a very long wait. People are either standing in line for 10-15 minutes inside the terminal or waiting on the bus that takes you to the plane, which can be either super hot and crowded, or freezing.. I don’t understand why they can’t call people to board when the plane is actually ready. I have flown many airlines and never seen any other airline that makes you wait as long as they do in anticipation of boarding and I don’t quite understand why they do that.
Please have a look at the company that had this survey done. Flightright helps passengers to exercise their rights and enforce them with the airlines. With these press releases, it puts pressure upon the airlines to pay quicker and more generously. The press release does not show the top 10, but if you have a closer look at the ‘results’ of this ‘survey, British Airwáys. Wizz Air and Condor have exactly the same score as KLM. So, the press release for the United Kingdom probably stated: “According to a comprehensive evaluation by Flightright, British Airways is the fifth-worst airline in 2025.” Furthermore, I wonder which KLM customers were asked to complete the customer satisfaction questionnaire. I bet they only invited Flightright customers to do so.
2024 was the last time I flew KLM. My first time was in 2007 and for many years they were my favorite airline. 2024 flipped that all to the opposite. KLM cancelled my connecting flight through Schiphol to Manchester and booked me on an SAS flight through Copenhagen the next day. How did I find out? Via email upon arrival at Schiphol. Yes, email. Cancelled due to weather at Schiphol, they said. Apparently they were the only airline that day to do such a thing based on the activity at the airport.
Chats with KLM’s miserable excuse for customer service was rude and intransigent. When I inquired about being comped entry into the KLM lounge, I was told “You’re an economy passenger. We don’t do that.” Essentially every conversation I had with KLM was just more ways of them telling me to “F” off.
Yes, I received compensation for the overnight stay (I’m sure KLM would have tried to avoid it if it weren’t E.U. law). Funny how every single airport staff member I spoke with said the same thing about KLM. All negative.
I will never fly KLM. As an American who visits at least 4x a year, they ripped my off for a flight from AMS to Nigeria during COVID. Since I wasn’t EU, I lost $1600. ,(at the time 1800 €. Will never fly KLM again.
I will never fly KLM. As an American who visits at least 4x a year, they ripped my off for a flight from AMS to Nigeria during COVID. Since I wasn’t EU, I lost $1600. ,(at the time $1800. They could care less. Will never fly KLM again.
Today in KLM flight from Amsterdam to Stockholm over 20 passengers their baggage didn’t arrived with the flight !! Passengers getting very upset from it , the airport answer that the baggage’s still in Amsterdam airport and it didn’t shipped in the same flight and we don’t know where are our baggages or when we will get it ..