KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Reviews and Complaints

i flew on your airline from accra, ghana, through amsterdam to detriot then to ohare chicago on the 1st of august 2009.On arrival at detriot i could not find my baggage and so i reported it to the airlines staff.they told me the baggage would be a little late so i should report it when i get to ohare international airport!up till date only one of my baggages has beeen delieverd to me!the other one is still missing.i've only 2weeks left in this country so i need my baggage back!get back to me as soon as possible, thank you!

My name is Diana Moreno Averhoff, and I'd like some guide on an issue occurred in Panama, August 5th of the present year with KLM airlines.

My itinerary was Costa Rica - Panama - Amsterdam - Stockholm. Once I arrived in Panama, my flight with Copa Airlines was a little bit late, however we were quickly located on the gate to take the flight to Amsterdam operated by KLM.

Some questions were made to me, for example where in Sweden I was going, my relationship with the person waiting for me, to which I replied it was a citizen of Sweden and a friend, and they kept on asking if that person was 'only my friend' which I didn't find relevant to answer, and since when I knew him. As long s I'm concerned, that information must be asked once I am on the UE and if it was in Panama it had to be asked by some migratory entity, not the airline itself.

They asked me for an invitation letter, which I had, and they said it was nothing without the copy of the passport of the person who was invited me.
Also asked me how much money I had. As long as I'm concerned a minimum of 520 Euros is asked, I had more than that amount but they never counted my money and didn't show any interest on helping me. When they insisted I didn't have enough money, I told them I could contact my family if they allowed me so I could get a transfer to my international debit card and once they did (less than 5 minutes) I could show them the funds they were asking for. They denied the help and a phone call.

I understand the requirements to travel to the UE, however they treated me bad, disrespectfully, even laughing and making jokes while I patiently was waiting for some answer and politely answer to all their questions. In your website there's a section where you can enter your origin country, connection country and final destnation and the requirements for the trip are listed. If I enter such information what I get is:

Passport required.
- Passport and/or passport replacing documents must be valid
on arrival.

Visa required, except for A max. stay of 3 months:
- for nationals of Costa Rica;

Additional Information:

- Visitors must hold visible means of support and need to hold
required documents (i.e., passport and where required, a
visa) for return or onward journey.

I had all the documents required with me, but even like that, they denied me to take my flight to Amsterdam. That was at 8:05 pm and they didn't provide me any information, an employee came with an offer of some hotel, they didn't even say they would cover the transportation, and said I had to pay for the hotel, which to my opinion, was not a thing I had to pay for, since I was traveling with all I needed. They denied everything that they could help me with, including to provide me with a fax number or an email where my contact in Sweden could send the scanned copy of their passport that they were requiring from me.

They blamed the other airline when I replied it wasn't my whole fault what was happening, and told me that next day I had to talk to Information on the airport at 7 am, and they said their shift was over, I had to look for them on a coffee shop because they left me sitting on the waiting room without saying anything to me. Told me they would be back next day at 2 pm but that I could find personnel at the airport around 10 am, which wasn't true, since next day I asked and I got informed that they were there around 6pm, because they only operated the Amsterdam flight.

I asked for some written document if they wanted to send me back to my country, to specify the reason why, they said there was nothing they could do if I didn't know about the rules to enter the UE, to which I replied I had knowledge of them, one of the ladies asked me very impolitely if this was my first travel.
They all were very rude to me, and I don't understand, if I am a customer on that airline, at least I deserve a concrete explanation and a little bit of help, because after all I'm the person paying for their services.

They knew my ticket was non refundable or subject to changes, however they told me I could fly next day if I had all that they asked me for, I don't understand why they lied to me. I got that information when I called the KLM offices in Panama, a lady tried to help me but said that my ticket was blocked with a note saying that I had incomplete documentation. I was stuck for 24 hours to hear that in the end. And the day before they even had taken my boarding pass and told me to go sleep to a hotel, knowing if they had my boarding pass it means I'm not able to come back to the airport later, however, an officer got my boarding pass back and gave it to me. I didn't have any idea of where my baggage was, they didn't help me at all.

I'm very disappointed, because after all I had to pass through on a country which wasn't mine, under their "rule" saying I had to pay $250 for staying in Panama because of their fault which in the end I found out I didn't have to pay, I came back to my country thanks to the help of Copa Airlines, they didn't charge any fee to me because they said I had a ticket back for August 20th and I was able to use it to come back on that day.
When I came to my country I discovered that KLM in Panama said that the reason I couldn't travel was because I didn't have a ticket back, which was an absolute lie. Since I had my ticket with me and I still have it here as a proof I acquired a round trip.

I expect an answer from them, because I believe I have been victim of an abuse from part of the personnel of their airline. They promote on their website that
"Compensation for flight disruptions and denied boarding: at KLM, we pride ourselves on providing a punctual, reliable service to all our passengers. If your flight is overbooked, canceled or delayed, you may be entitled to compensation"
So I hope I can get a prompt answer to my very bad experience, because I know they are a big airline and they should also give their customers support.

On a recent flight to Cyprus, flown by KLM to Prague and then Czech Airlines to Cyprus, my partner's ticket was checked by the KLM people before boarding. only later to be sent back to Holland because the Czech Airlines stewardess in Prague, the official partners of KLM by the way, said she couldn't read the Dutch on his official papers (he is a foreigner, staying legally in The Netherlands with all the correct papers for it).

KLM have done absolutely nothing about it, saying that they have contracts with their partners making them responsible for dealing with claims. All very cute: take the money, and when things go wrong, leave the customer stranded.

Needless to say, Czech Airlines have not even had the decently to respond to anything I sent. Czech Airlines has always been known in Europe as a third rate airline, but as a regular KLM passenger, I am extremely disappointed with KLM. Now that they need money, they are making everyone a partner, but beware when things go wrong because you will be stuck with the results.

I called KLM asking for details about the baggage allowance for my flight, KL878 from Taipei to Amsterdam, and the representative told me that an extra piece of luggage could be brought for $50. When arriving at the airport, I was told that the baggage allowance is only 20kg and that each additional kg costs 30 euro! That makes for a total of 800 us dollars! This is absurd! I would have planned accordingly if I had known about the weight limit and the cost of additional baggage! What can I do?

On Wednesday, April 15 at 3:00pm (Rome time) Me and my wife checked in at KLM counter in Rome Airport (Fiumicino) for flight KL1604 (FCO-AMS) and KL809 (AMS-CGK). On Thursday, April 16 at 5:15 pm (WIB) we finally arrived at CGK – Jakarta (Soekarno-Hatta Airport). Felt very exhausted after long hours flight, we have waited for all our luggage only to find out that they did not show up. Felt desperately and anxious we reported our problem to the airport staff. Then we found out that our luggage data were input wrongly by KLM staff in Rome Airport’s check in counter. The names was stated Baldini, the gentlemen who we assume checked in before us and our flight was stated KL 1604& KL 753 and was sent to country/ state of UIO which it suppose to be KL 1604& KL 809 to CGK.

That night end up really exhausted physically and mentally for us. As KLM customer, we are very disappointed with the experience we have to endure. On Sunday, our luggage was sent back to us by KL809 :17.15 but we have to wait until 00.30am on Tuesday to receive our luggage. What really disappointed us, our luggage arrived in such bad condition. The zipper were opened and we lost Handphone HTC Touch Pro and Swatch Watch (total lost value of Rp.12.000.000, -).

Our complaint was responded by KLM Jakarta on May 5, 2009 ( 20 days after our complain was submitted), very slow respond for a lost of material case. Can we imagine if this is about an injury case. The respond from KLM Jakarta were disappointed us deeply. They refuse to compensate for our lost and only about to send a sorry email.. Is this a kind of responsibility from European Airline? Big name in Europe does not guarantee we were being treated with fairness as a customer.

Such error should not be happening especially for KLM, a well known international airline company. After this incident we not recommend to use KLM service ever again. KLM carelessness has caused desperation and anxiety for us. Nobody should never have bad experience that we have.

KLM have no regard for their customers.

My son was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Aberdeen via Amsterdam on a late night flight. We got him to the airport in good time, he checked in in good time, he was at the departure gate - in good time.

But there was a message on the TV monitor at the gate saying a KLM flight to Amsterdam had a change of gate. All a bit confusing apparantly so he spoke to a member of staff who said yes, he should go to this other gate a train ride away, which he did.

Turns out KLM have two flights going to Amsterdam at much the same time and it was the other one that had a gate change, not his, staff person wrong. My son missed his flight.

KLM could not have done less if they had tried. Total disinterest.

Best airport KLM staff would offer was to say he should turn up for tnext day's flight which was fully booked - if there was a cancellation they would let him on for 400Euros. All KLM staff then disappeared for the night.

He phoned us so we called KLM trying to work out how to get him home. Staff on the phone not interested, said their records showed he had not even checked in and just said we'd have to buy a new ticket. Very unhelpful made no suggestions, no 'how unfortunate, let's see what can we do to help, '

Because of work commitments, my son needed to get back to the UK urgently.

According to the internet there were seats on the other KLM flight for the next night. It turns out that flight is operated by Air Malaysia which is probably why KLM staff never mentioned this as a possibility.

My son had been told the KLM office opened again at 8.30am so he decided to stay at the airport to either bag a cheap cancellation seat or, as they were saying he would have to do, purchase a new ticket.

KLM office did not open at 8.30! Not open till 3pm.

Thankfully I had gone to the airport to fetch him. And fortunately the airport information desk were quite helpful and gave us number for KLM office in the city. So we went there and at first they just said tonight's flight fully booked so nothing they could do - again no hint of human compassion for a very upsetting situation.
In fact, the woman made sneering comment that Ross's original ticket was the cheapest possible, so they could not help in any way.
I explained Ross needed to get home urgently but they still didn't mention the other flight.
Only when I said there were seats on the other flight she said yes there were but he would need to buy a new ticket costing 5, ooo RM /£1000 not a penny less!

Perhaps KLM had no part in my son being sent to the wrong gate, but as a young man who could become a valued customer, he was shown no customer care whatsoever.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Airline staff did their very best to be helpful while he was at the airport - tried hard to find a routing that would get him back to the UK on time, allowed him to recharge his phone at their desk, were sympathetic and kind.

I recently booked a flight with KLM to travel from Barcelona to Amsterdam. On the day of my departure my roommate fell extremely ill and I had to rush him to the hospital with an dangerously high fever. Knowing full well I had this flight to catch I departed from the hospital as soon as he was settled into a room and arrived at the airport 33 minutes before my flight. I was behind a couple in line you for about 5 to 10 minutes before I was allowed to check in. Mind you there was only one check in booth open at the time. Because there was now a little less than 30 minutes before my flight I was turned away and told the flight was filled with waitlisted individuals and there was no longer room for myself. I was then directed towards the ticket booth to discuss my options. The woman there told me that even if I was to book a new one way ticket with a different airline my return flight was also no longer valid because of my supposed late arrival for my departure. I was also told that standby on a later flight was not an option for me and then only way I could get to my destination was by paying an extra 276 euro. As I was doing all this I was on the phone with my friend who was also on the same flight and had already checked in and he was telling me how they still have yet to even board the plane and the gate wasn't anywhere near to being open. When I contacted KLM customer service via telephone I was hung up on in the middle of explaining to them my situation with my ill friend. Because of this I suggest that you beware when purchasing a ticket with this company and understand that they put their giant corporation above any customer no matter what.

WE CHECKED LUGGAGE (TWO GREEN DUFFLE BAGS) IN WINDHOEK NAMIBIA ON JANUARY 21 2009. BRITISH ÅIRWAYS OPERATED BY COMAIR . FLIGHT 6274 TO JOHANNESBURG THE BAGS WERE CHECKED THROUGH TO PORTLAND OR, USA.

WE FLEW ON JANUARY 21 FROM JOBERG TO AMSTERDAM ON FLIGHT 8422 NORTHWEST AIRLINES OPERATED BY KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES KL 59

ON JANUARY 22 WE FLEW NORTHWEST AIRLINES FROM AMSTERDAM TO SEATTLE ON NW #033.

OUR BAGS WERE NOT IN SEATTLE FOR CUSTOMS CHECK AND WE FEW ON TO PORTLAND ON NORTHWEST AIRLINES #5108 OPERATED BY HORIZON AIR. REPEATED ATTEMPTS THROUGH HORIZON AND NORTHWEST HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN LOCATION THE BAGS. IT IS OUR FEELING THAT WHEN THE BAGS ARRIVED IN JOHANNESBURG THERE WAS NO BARCODING TO INDICATE WHAT CARRIER WAS RESPONSIBLE FOOR THEM AND THAT THEY ARE SITTING IN JOBERG AS UNCLAIMED. THEY ARE TWO MATCHING DARK GREEN DUFFLES MARKED ON SIDE WITH "OVERSEAS ADVENTURE TRAVEL". MINE HAS FOUR YELLOW NAME TAGS WITH MY NAME AND ADDRESS (SOME WITH MY PHONE NUMBER.) MY NAME IS MARILYN MCDONALD 6533 SW 34TH AVE, PORTLAND OREGON. PHONE [protected]. MY HUSBAND BAG HAS TWO YELLOW OVERSEAS ADVENTURE TAGS ON IT WITH HIS NAME AND ADDRESS: WILFORD WEEKS (SAME ADDRESS)

THE BAGS WEIGHED UNDER 30 POUNDS EACH. SURELY THEY CANNOT BE THAT HARD TO LOCATE. WILL YOU PLEASE GIVE THE JOBERG AIRPORT A GOOD SEARCH? ALSO AMSTERDAM?
OUR TWO CLAIM CHECKS READ AS FOLLOWS:

AIR NAMIBIA
WDH 21 JAN09 SEQ12
NM WEEKS/WILFORDMR
P/W 2/23 POOL 1 CL M
PORTLAND
TO PDX FLT 5108 21JAN
VIA JNB BA 6374 21JAN

UNDER THE BARCODE ARE THE NUMBERS186324665
BOTH CLAIM CHECKS ARE THE SAME AND BOTH ARE LISTED UNDER MY HUSBANDS NAME: WILFORD WEEKS.

WE ARE CERTAINLY ANXIOUS FOR THE RETURN OF THESE BAGS AND WILL APPRECIATE EVERYTHING YOU CAN DO TO FACILITATE THEIR RECOVERY. THANK YOU.

MARILYNMCDONALD
email: [protected]@comcast.net

missedconnection in Amsterdam for Moscow due to delay in first flight Brussels-Amsterdam, he took following flightthis meant he missed another flight in the evening to Magnetagorsk, as he had a press conference, a presentation and a Master class, where he was the speaker in all of these events, therefore he had to take the only available alternative flight to Cherliabinsk a city 400 km away followed by a 4hr Taxi drive in Siberian December weather & temperatures, he arrived at destination a day after leaving Brussels.
Baggage did not arrive in Moscow with him, three flights after his arrival, at this point he was already in Magnetagorsk, In Moscow they inform him that they cannot forward it because he is a foreigner and must pick up himself in Moscow, by the time he is back in Moscow he will no longer need his luggage or have time to look for it as he will be returning to Italy
The Inconvenience that has come from this is enormous, the unhelpfulness found in Amsterdam at transit desk where he didn't speak English and the gentleman representing you refused to talk to me on mobile was very disappointing, he therefore was unable to explain that he could only go onto Moscow if he was sure to reach final destination otherwise he would return home, the gentleman behind the desk just kept repeating in his face Moscow or Italy, not being able to communicate meant he had no choice but to fly to Moscow and hope for the best! I therefore require that at least in this final part of his journey back to Italy you will avoid him having to miss work to go and find his luggage in Moscow and then have to re-check it in (if he finds it).
he had to buy clothes for the three days of business meetings, he had to hold a conference without any sleep and travelling for about 30 hours and in clothes bought in 30minutes, He had to buy a new flight to Cherliabinsk, He had to pay a four hour Taxi drive. The stress and as a result the quality of the press conference, presentation and master class all to be calculated.
Customer service on phone:We have contacted Aeroflot 10 times in the last 3 days, but have not resolved, KLM customer service tells us all they can do is advise to contact Aeroflot !, surely KLM is responsable?!

I booked a return ticket about 2 months ago which I never used. Due this I asked the KLM to refund me with the airport taxes. After numerous calls and on line forms I have filled I am still in the position of waiting for my money. I have a feeling the KLM will never refund me, as last time they said they would give it back in 2 weeks and it’s more than 3 weeks and a half now and still nothing. Most recently when I called them they said I should ask the refund department and send some more e-mails.

Dear KLM Authority,
For the past 15 years, I have had the opportunity to travel abroad to attend medical conventions or to have vacations. I have used the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines quite a number of times. Your airline services are satisfactory to good. I have had no reason to complain before.

Let me relate an incident which happened during our last flight abroad. Last October 9, 2008, my other medical colleagues and I left Tegel Airport, Berlin, Germany to return to the Philippines. The first leg of our journey was Berlin, Germany to Amsterdam. We were on the KLM Flight 1822 which left Tegel at 1020am. My handcarry was a knapsack which was a laptop case. It had my laptop, notebook cooler and other important computer accessories in it. This handcarry was placed in a safe position in the luggage bin. It follows that this can only be removed by the owner or upon permission of the owner. It is not removed to give way to other larger handcarried items of other passengers who are late. What happened was that my knapsack/laptop bag was removed by a KLM stewardess who wanted to place a larger piece of luggage in it's former location. She carelessly placed it in front of another handcarried bag because the luggage bin was quite full. As a result of this thoughtless action, my handcarry containing my laptop and other accessories fell. It would have fallen to the floor if it did not fall against the arm of the chair and later caught by a fellow passenger. It contained a very sensitive machine which could have been irreparably damaged. I told the stewardess to give my handcarry back to me if she could not put it in a safe place.

I tried to get the name of that stewardess but she was never visible after this incident. All I know is that she is a brunette who rarely smiles.

This complaint is being submitted inorder to avoid similar accident. Please reply at the soonest possible time.

Me and my families travelled from edmonton IAP -Canada to Addis ababa IAP -Ethiopia on Jun 16, 2008 and checked 10 luggages but received only 9 luggages, we were told, they are going to track the luggage then we will contact you, after waiting for amonth and half they called us to come to check in the lost and found room we did but our luggage wasn`t there. After all this happened they gave us a pice of paper to get a claim form, when we went to the klm office and one of the lady in the office told us to go to the ticket counter, when we ask we were told go to the pre boarding lobby we will bring up there which thy didn`t, when we asked again before boarding then again told us we will bring you inside the plane which they didn`t. The last question was in Amsterdam then again no solution it was over.

I wish to express my dissatisfaction with the compensation of the amount CNY2500.

I expect that you understand for what I’ve lost in the luggage and the inconvenience caused is priceless and if I were given a chance I would not want a single cent but my luggage back.

You could say sorry, compensate a certain amount of money in the doubt that I may given you an illegitimate exaggeration and/or false claim, explaining that you’ve done so called extensive tracing but it is fruitless while still hoping that I may choose your flights to restore the confidence.

Unfortunately, what I could do is claiming what I should get as a responsibility to myself and my friends and family who facing a lost of their supposed-to-have gifts and souvenirs. I hope you understand that in the case of returning home country after so many years stays at oversea, my luggage would have tons of memorable stuffs and carefully-selected gifts that money can’t buy.

I don’t even understand why my luggage will lost at the first place. What is the problem for your sides to losing not only mine but some of the others customers’ luggage as well? When the loss is in such a quantity, what have all these giant size and giant weight luggages gone? Would it possible all of the luggages just disappear in the air? I expect that a systematic tracing can help in this issue but I was given an answer that “despite extensive tracing actions in an attempt to recover your luggage, our efforts have so far proved fruitless”.

Personally, I hope you could spare a second to think of the reason you keep a receipt. You should ask yourself what is the reason of keeping receipts before your defensive mechanism assertion that it is me who unable to provide you with the receipts. In common sense, we all keep receipts for refund, exchange or record. In my case, I am definitely would not think of keeping a receipt for refund and exchange purpose since I know I am leaving the country for good. In other words, I will throw away most of my receipts unless those I want to keep for record purpose. If I’ve keep the very limited numbers of receipts left carefully but yet fail to submit together with the previous letter just because that my receipts were inside that lost luggage. Can a sensible adult like you, tell me is that my fault or your fault?

It’s not my expectation that I will lose my luggage. In other words, it is not my expectation that a well-known airline like KLM Royal Dutch Airlines could have losing its customer’s luggage and simultaneously being unreasonably difficult in tracing and providing a good feedback in regards to the loss.

What seem offensive to me is in the consent letter you wrote “If the payment is done by way of compensation for the loss, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will have a lien on the goods and relevant documents, receipts etc”. Would this mean KLM always prefer to keep its customer’s belonging when it had lawfully compensate its customer rather than kindly inform the customer that the lost item was found? Why what your side have proposed and explaining seem so legally illegal to me?

I am sorry too that I am definitely not accepting the compensation. I believe sorry is always easy to say but that are cases that we all know sorry not cure. I again reasonably expect what a lay-man expects to receive your reply as soon as possible for this complaint letter rather than a compensation claim letter.

Thank you!

Arriving at Norwich at 21:30 on Friday 29th August, my bag did not arrive. Reported and filled in a PIR. I overheard another member of staff saying that KLM always leave 4 or 5 bags behind on each flight into Norwich! The next flight from Amsterdam was the next morning at 09:00 and I rang at 09:30 to be told that they had my bag, and they would give it to the Courier who came at 13:00. I asked for it now but was told it would have to wait for the courier. Eventually the delayed bag arrived at my home at 18:00 hours, 20 hours late.

Speaking with the courier he told me that he usually delivered between 15 and 20 delayed bags from KLM each day. This was just to Norwich from Schipol. How many others are delayed on a regular basis.

I bought a roundtrip ticket from Chicago to Mumbai (India) via Amsterdam for Feb 12 2008. I missed my first flight from Chicago to Amsterdam due to a snowstorm in Chicago and traffic backups. So I spoke to the manager at Chicago. He informed me that for a $200 charge, I could use the ticket to fly from Chicago to Mumbai later. I bought a one way ticket on another airline to Mumbai and returned on KLM as previously planned.

When I tried to redeem my one way ticket that I had not used from Chicago to Mumbai, KLM said that since my return ticket was already used up, the unused ticket that I thought I still had from Chicago to Mumbai was INVALID. The customer service representative on phone went on to add that "she didnt know how they let me board the return flight and I should be happy for it". Before getting on my return flight to Chicago, I had even called up the KLM office to reconfirm the ticket and they did so. If they care to check their phone records, they'll find this is true.

They will not honour my ticket that I paid for, accept that it's the fault of someone who belongs to their airline in India and still refuse to do anything about it. This is much more serious than bad service. I am outraged at the service they have provided to me and at the customer service representative I spoke to on phone, who even yelled at me.

It just makes me feel cheated that an airline so blatantly denies me what I paid for.

My mother arrived by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on 8/8/2008 and one of her baggage was missing. It's been 6 days since we filed the complaint, which was the day she arrived, and there has been absolutely no response from KLM. We've left multiple voice messages at their number [protected] but to no avail.

On my flight KL 0893 from Amsterdam to Shanghai on 3rd of August I was served expired food. The breakfast was actually served on the morning of 04 August and the expiry date was 02 August. I do have the breakfast box as evidence with expiry dates and flight related details printed on it. This caused me inconvinience and is a potential lawsuit as I do have all the evidence with me. I did inform the flight incharge and the KLM check - in counter in Shanghai upon arrival in Shanghai.

I would like KLM to compensate me for this inconvinience by at least providing me five free round trip tickets to Amsterdam from Shanghai or else I would bring KLM in the court of law which could potentially lead to a much larger claim

Temba College have used KLM since 1994 for our annual youth tour to Europe. During this time they transported ±780 students on our behalf for which we paid them in full. The fact that they can fly us into London and out of Amsterdam suits us.

We bought four sectors (48 tickets) from KLM on the internet namely: See Air Ticket

Cape Town to Amsterdam 25 June 2008

Amsterdam to London 26 June 2008

London to Amsterdam 16 July 2008

Amsterdam to Cape Town 16 July 2008

In one instance - one girl from Amsterdam to Johannesburg 16 July 2008.

We read KLM’s terms and conditions carefully.

Nowhere in the terms and conditions is it stated that we have to make use of all sectors, neither does it state that the non-use of a sector constitutes a route change. Their terms and conditions further do not state that we need KLM’s permission if we want to surrender one or more sector. It merely states that the carrier (KLM Air France) will refund us if we do so. We never asked KLM or planned to ask for the refund and we made that clear in writing.

We furnished KLM with written notice that we would not be using flight KL 1000 from London to Amsterdam on 16 July.

On 15 July KLM in three separate phone calls, advised us of the following.

The flight KLM 1000 from London to Amsterdam was hopelessly overbooked and they could not accommodate all our students on that flight. See the affidavits.

That unless our group traveled from Amsterdam to London in order to fly from London to Amsterdam on (the overbooked) flight KLM 1000, they would not honour our tickets from Amsterdam onwards. It was impossible to transport 48 students from Amsterdam to Cape Town at that late stage.

They demanded almost €8000 from us in order to put us on our flights to Cape Town and Johannesburg. We needed to raise the above amount before 09h00 that particular morning. The amount per student differed between ±€67 to ±€420. The fact that this makes absolutely no sense to any normal human being was of no concern whatsoever to KLM-Air France.

The front desk staff of KLM – Air France, clearly don’t know what is stipulated in the terms and conditions and were unwilling to read it. I begged the supervisor, Mr Kuijer, to read it. He and all his staff refused. Mr Kuijer was later helpful but the majority of the staff remained extremely arrogant and unhelpful.

It left me with no other choice other than to try and raise the money. I offered my passport in order to give me time to raise the money. They refused and the aircraft departed without 20 of our students. We were stranded without accommodation, food and needed to deal with extremely unhelpful and arrogant KLM – Air France staff.

These particular 20 youngsters were then waitlisted.

One girl lost her passport and the police enforced KLM to support her. The police officer advised both the student and I that this was entirely KLM’s mistake and that KLM were liable for the support of the girl. After they advised KLM as such, KLM gave her meal vouchers and a confirmed seat on the next flight.

On Sunday 20 July, the 9 boys still stranded were given confirmed seats by the supervisor, Mr Kuijer, for the 22 July 2008. He confirmed this to all 9 boys and I.

I confronted Mr. Kuijer in front of the boys. It was apparent that Mr Kuijer had not read nor understood the terms and conditions of KLM Air France Internet booking conditions.

On Tuesday 22 July we arrived 3 hours before departure at the Schiphol Airport and we were informed that two boys had once again been moved to the wait list. After 3 hours of immense stress and some tears, they managed to get on the plane and landed safely in Cape Town where these last 9 boys were eventually re-united with their families.

CONGRATULATIONS KLM OFFICE IN ACCRA, GHANA!

YOU CAN SUCCESSFULLY BOAST OF HAVING SOME OF THE RUDEST RESERVATIONS OFFICERS IN THE COUNTRY.

THERE IS A PARTICULAR LADY WITH A VERY DEEP VOICE LIKE A MAN'S, WHO IS CONSTANTLY CONSTANTLY RUDE.

I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT I WONDER HOW SHE STILL HAS A JOB. IT ONLY TELLS US THAT IF YOU WILL ALLOW YOUR CLIENTS TO BE TREATED LIKE SHE DOES US, (PHONE OR IN PERSON) THEN YOU REALLY COULD NOT BE BOTHERED.

WE KNOW ABOUT THE PRESSURES OF THE WORK, BUT IF WE HAVE TO BEG YOU TO BE NICE TO YOUR OWN CUSTOMERS, IT MAY JUST NOT BE WORTH IT.