16:45, Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. I write this because I have the time. I have lots of time. All of a sudden I am swimming in time due to a gift of my airline: KLM Royal Dutch Airways. I was booked to fly this morning at 9:45 from Amsterdam to Geneva with KLM. Because I hate to keep people waiting I arrive early at the airport. Way too early (a friend dropped me off as he was going to work). The automated check-in terminal tells me to “report to desk”. I queue and get my boarding pass marked that I don’t have a seat as the flight is overbooked. I ask if this is normal and the lady assures me it is and “all airlines do it”. Isn’t that funny? In the old days that excuse never seemed to work with teachers, parents, etc. “Oh, but all the others do that as well, mum”. “Really? Well, you’re not all others, son”.
Back to my boarding pass. I walk to the gate. I’m now an hour and a half too early. I unfold my laptop and begin to do some morning work. Then, it must have been around 9 AM, the first ominous message. We are looking for volunteers among the passengers travelling to Geneva on the 9:45 flight who are willing to offer their seat in exchange for 150E and a booking on the next flight. Hmmm. I think about this briefly. 150E is nice. But I hear it’s only in vouchers. OK, forget it. Only listen to offers with real money, man. If only I knew what’d come next.
Somewhere around 9:15. Ladies and gentleman, the flight to Geneva of 9:45 has been cancelled due to technical problems. We will be looking to rebook you on the next flights. O, great. There goes my appointment of 13:00 back home. I start wondering when I will be able to fly. As I got this flight on a special 3 day offer, I am made increasingly aware that I am not their first priority. Business class and frequent flyers go first. They seem to be rebooked quite quickly to the next flight around noon. The regular customers get a lottery and I am unfortunate enough to get the last flight of 18:15. The girl at the desk even tries to console me telling me I’m really not lucky.
Realizing that there is no way to arrive on time I decide to try and make the most of the situation. I’ll have to work here, rather than back at the office. So I set about asking what KLM can do for me to make this a reality. They have lounges where people can work and have access to internet. As a techie road warrior this is all I need. Just give me 220, Wifi and a bunch of coffees and I’m a happy man. I arrive at the lounge. If I’m a business class traveler? No. Frequent flyer? Well, in my opinion yes, but I never filled in any card and I guess in their eyes I’m not that frequent a flyer either. I begin to grasp the depth to which I have sunk in KLM’s eyes. And I realize that KLM has outdone the low-cost carriers in treating passengers like cattle. Here you are sir, a voucher for 10 E of food/drink, and 50 E voucher for a next ticket with KLM. And the rest is simply not our problem. Yes, we could help you, but you’re a cheap m*therf***, so f* you. So I’m left to roam the airport looking for a comfortable place to sit, 220v, and an internet connection. Why is wifi so outrageously expensive in places like this? I’m left wondering why all those people at the KPN mobile connection point are forking out this kind of money? I guess because there is no choice.
17:00. Toward the end of the day I find my way to the transfer desk. By this time I’m tired and fed up as you can imagine. A delay of a couple of hours is bearable, but one of 8,5 is not if you have work to do. I ask the clerk if there is any kind of compensation in these cases. She asks me about the situation. She finds the delay ‘bizarre’ but informs me that the voucher I received was correct procedure. I ask for the policy information regarding delays and cancellations. She hands them to me with a form to fill out in case of a complaint. In the documentation I find out there is an entitlement to at least a 250 E compensation according to European law in my case. So why did she not inform me of this? I can only guess KLM does not want people to know about this. I go back and ask her? She replies that this is ‘another department’ and not them. Lame excuse to say the least. By this time I’ve had it with this airline and the way it has treated me today. I’m looking forward to getting home, ranting about this on the internet and sending in my letter of reclamation.
To all my customers that were waiting for answers from me personally yesterday, I apologize for the delay.
What you can take from this rant: (1) the non low-cost carriers do not necessarily treat you any better than the low-cost ones, and (2) when travelling in the EU, note you have rights that the airline does not wantonly inform you of.