No more KLM

You'd think that as I live near Schiphol that a direct flight via KLM would be the obvious choice, assuming the price was good.

That's what I assumed. No boring stop overs, no missing luggage. Easy, right?

But I hadn't taken into account the genius who designed KLM's seat filling procedures. The KLM flight (KL877) from Amsterdam to Bangkok actually has very few people on it whose journey originates in the Netherlands. Most come from feeder flights from other countries.

KLM's policy is to overbook the flight, which I doubt is news to anyone. But they give priority to people on the feeder flights. So if you fly economy from Schiphol you get whatever seats are left. Perhaps if you have a shiny enough frequent flier card you get a higher priority, but I was booked in economy class, and I have no frequent flier cards. So even though I had paid for my ticket three months in advance and was at the airport two and a half hours early, there was no seat for me.

This is bad enough. But instead of telling me at check-in that I would instead have to travel on such-and-such a flight in so many hours/days/weeks I was told to wait around Schiphol for an hour and a half then go to the gate where they would probably have a seat for me. Anyone who has been to Schiphol will know that it is not the kind of place that's fun to hang around.

At the gate I was told to come back in a further half an hour. Miraculously, they then found me (and the other Netherlands based passengers) a seat.

I find flying stressful enough without the added worry of not knowing if I'm going to be flying on the flight I paid for or not. As far as KLM are concerned they got me on the flight so they owe me nothing, not even an apology. They haven't even bothered to reply to the complaint I put in their online feedback system. They argue that every airline does the same. This may be the case, but only KLM are based at Schiphol, only KLM messed me around.

I won't be flying KLM again, in any class, to any destination, unless someone puts a gun to my head. Life's too short to be treated like this.

Update: I received this letter, co-incidetally on the day they announced record profits. I still won't be putting them on my christmas card list.

Rant over.