Browsing Tag: KL627

Heck yes! DJ'n at 35,000 feet on KLM's new Amsterdam to Miami flight.

Heck yes! DJ'n at 35,000 feet on KLM's new Amsterdam to Miami flight.

It takes something big to turn down an offer to fly on a party plane from Amsterdam to Miami on KLM. I was invited to KLM’s party flight, but unfortunately had to turn it down to cover the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental’s first flight.

Luckily Shashank Nigam, who runs the site Simpliflying.com, was on the flight and able to share all the excitement. “The KLM flight was quite exciting, and entertaining, to say the least,” Nigam told me over email. “It was the first time I was in a plane that felt more like a club, since everyone was grooving to the music being played by the Dutch DJs. Probably the most happening 10 hours I’ve spent in the air.”

The passengers were no ordinary folks. Sure there were quite a few DJ’s to offer block-rocking-beats, but also passengers who won KLM’s Fly2Miami social media competition. And actually the power of social media made KLM change the first flight.

Originally KLM planned to fly on March 27th, but a DJ and film maker explained that would be too late for participating in spring break events in Miami. KLM challenge them to fill the plane and they would make it happen.

One beautiful tri-hole. A KLM MD-11.

One beautiful tri-hole. A KLM MD-11.

They started a website and social media campaign to get folks to get 150 people to sign up and only had seven days to do it. Luckily for them, it only took five hours to fill the plane and KLM changed the date to March 21st. Now that is awesome.

Well for social media it is awesome, for me it meant I couldn’t go. Although parting at 35,000 feet is pretty slick, I am more upset that the aircraft used on the flight was an MD-11 and I missed out flying on it. KLM is the only airline offering scheduled passenger service using the MD-11. For an airline nerd, this is awesome. KLM flies a fleet of 10 passenger versions and seven cargo versions of the MD-11 aircraft. This is a small percentage of their over 200 aircraft strong fleet.

KLM will now offer scheduled service from Amsterdam four days per week and is their 65th international destination.

MORE GOODIES:
* Video of Water canon salute
* Video of the DJ’s in action at 35,000 feet
* KLM’s blog about the event

Images: DJ from KLM, MD-11 from caribb