How does the Northwest Air operated by KLM work?
 

I'm trying to figure out what "operated by KLM" means when booking a flight with Northwest. Does that mean the flight will be a KLM plane/service? Can anyone please clarify? THANKS!

Yes, if it says "operated by KLM" that means you'll be flying a KLM plane. NWA and KLM are partners, and often have code-shared flights.

Gracias! I'm happy I've discovered this forum! Even my well traveled friends don't know about it.

KLM and Air France merged a little while ago, so you might even get an Air France plane. Quality of all three is good.

best regards,
Deirdré Straughan
www.straughan.com

It won't be an Air France plane, as Air France and KLM do not interchange aircraft AT ALL.

Northwest and KLM cooperate on all transatlantic flights to the United States from the Netherlands and India.

KLM operates
Amsterdam-Washington Dulles
Amsterdam-Newark
Amsterdam-New York Kennedy
Amsterdam-Detroit
Amsterdam-Minneapolis/St. Paul
Amsterdam-San Francisco
Amsterdam-Los Angeles
Amsterdam-Chicago O'Hare

and Northwest Operates
Amsterdam-Memphis
Amsterdam-New York Kennedy
Amsterdam-Newark
Amsterdam-Boston
Amsterdam-Detroit
Amsterdam-Minneapolis
Amsterdam-Seattle

Air France and KLM do not codeshare yet for some unknown reason.

But you get NWA frequent flyer miles on all three airlines, at least that's my understanding.

KLM and Air France do code share. I am booked on a KLM flight in a few weeks from now from Paris to Amsterdam, which is clearly marked "operated by Air France".

Northwest and KLM have operated as partners for a number of years. More recent developments have included KLM being acquired by Air France and Northwest joining the Skyteam alliance:

http://www.skyteam.com/skyteam

Codeshares are always identified. Northwest flights operated by Northwest itself are flight numbers 1-1999 and for long overseas flights, they tend to be low numbers.

I thought Air France had been acquired by KLM, not the other way around.

It is called a merger, but in effect, it was a takeover of KLM by Air France. The Paris-based holding company that owns the two airlines is controlled by Air France, even though the airlines will continue to operate as separate entities.

It was a merger, with Air France holding the majority interest. Under the terms of the deal, the French government's 54.4 percent stake in Air France was diluted to 44 percent of the enlarged group with other Air France shareholders holding 37 percent and KLM holding 19 percent.

The Dutch government and Dutch public foundations will hold 51 percent of KLM's voting rights for three years to protect its international landing rights which could be at risk if it was deemed to be French rather than Dutch-owned.

It's a KLM plane with KLM staff. You can check-in on nwa.com, but you leave your bags with KLM at the airport. And if you don't do online check-in, you also check-in with KLM, not NW.

In my experience, if the indication is "operated by" that means you get a crew and aircraft from that air line.

In the KLM/Northwest situation, the overwhelming chances are that the crew will be from the Netherlands.

And I don't think you can online check in for international. They want to see you live and in person.

You can indeed check-in online and print your boarding passes for NW and KL flights on nwa.com. I just did that for my parents two days ago.

You'll need to type in your passport numbers into the system. However, since I wasn't at the gate with my parents, I don't know if anybody actually check their passports again.

And I also print their boarding passes for the intra-Europe flights as well, so they don't need to go to a KLM desk once in AMS.

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Somebody mentioned FF miles in this thread. Yes, you can usually earn NW miles on the KL flight, whether your ticket has a NW or KL flight number. But the exact rule will depend on the <b>issuing</b> airline; and it gets complicated when you try to put miles into a partner FF program. In general, you can't earn miles on a partner's partner; so if you want to put miles into DL or CO's FF programs, one might want to book the flights in KL numbers rather than NW's, even though all of these airlines are partners in the same alliance. And I won't even try to get into the EQM problems here...