As mentioned time and time again here on flightsmilesandpoints.com airlines are in what can only be described as a race to introduce Premium Economy as an onboard product. A hybrid product between Business Class and Economy Class which caters to the growing demand for affordable yet comfortable travel. Among the airlines moving in this direction is KLM, which has decided to go with a very different naming choice though. The Dutch national carrier has just completed retrofitting an important part of its fleet with its newest onboard product.
Premium Comfort (or Premium Economy) Now Available on All KLM Boeing 777 and 787
The airline’s retrofitting effort lasted approximately two years. The goal was to update its Boeing 777 interiors to offer KLM’s newest onboard product, Premium Comfort. In plainer terms that is what every other airline calls Premium Economy, just KLM went with a different name. The essence though is that now KLM can offer passengers greater onboard experience consistency across its Boeing 777 and 787 fleets.
Previously only the airline’s Dreamliner fleet featured Premium Economy as a travel option. Now, the 787s are joined by the Boeing 777s.
This was no mean feat for the Dutch airline. Keep in mind that KLM owns and operates a total of 54 passenger Boeing 777s and each and every one of them had to be taken out of service and retrofitted with the new cabin. Each plane’s retrofitting work took anywhere between 4 and 16 days.
Both KLM’s Boeing 777-200s and the larger 300s, now offer as a travel class Premium Economy. The size of the cabin is the same across both variants, with 24 seats over 3 rows in a 2-4-2 layout sandwiched between Business and Economy Class.
The Left Behind Fleet of Airbus A330s – Not Up to Par For 2025
There are though some long-range planes which remain left behind. The airline’s Airbus A330s in both 200 and 300 variants still feature some quite outdated cabins which don’t hold up well when compared to other KLM wide body planes or other airlines’. The A330 fleet still features a 2-2-2 layout in business class offering very little privacy compared to what has become the norm in 2024 and all the more in 2025. Economy class is the only other travel option on these planes.
They are, if possible, the planes to avoid in the KLM fleet, particularly on longer sectors. Their comfort levels are just a little too low compared to what is the standard nowadays.