Flying Blue - 1st of April changes

Dear Air France / KLM / Flying Blue,

We the undersigned are writing to you to express our dislike and disappointment with the continued devaluation of the Flying Blue programme. We do not believe that your actions reflect your slogans of caring and focusing on your best customers.

We reflect a substantial amount of your best customers (amongst others business travelers, Platinum, Gold and Silver Flying Blue members) who no longer feel the Flying Blue programme provides value for its customers.

The main areas of concern are the following:

The change in redemption levels, especially in Business and First.
The change in earnings.

These two combined mean that:

We now have to fly up to 6 times more to get equal rewards compared to before the changes.
Retaining elite status has become very difficult

These factors and the constant deterioration of the Flying Blue programme over the years have caused many of us to re-evaluate our loyalty. As a direct result of the changes planned for 1st of April 2009 many of us are planning to move (or have moved) to Star Alliance or OneWorld carriers for our travels. The way the changes have been communicated has contributed to our eroding loyalty.

The AF-KL products (especially the premium products) are by many considered inferior to the competition and therefore the generosity of Flying Blue is a vital part of the competitiveness of AF-KL. In the current economic climate it seems like foolishness to alienate part of your frequent travelers.

We kindly remind the management teams of Air France, KLM and Flying Blue that loyalty is a two way process. Without any reciprocal benefits for our loyalty we shall move to the competition where some are actually improving their customer loyalty programmes.

We therefore urge you to reconsider the current strategy for the Flying Blue programme. We would be more than willing to exchange ideas on improving the Flying Blue programme even in the current economic climate.