Travelers furious about KLM cancellations: ‘What mismanagement’ | Economy

“I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” sighs university lecturer Bas van de Schootbrugge. Together with his colleague from Utrecht University, he spent the night at Barcelona airport. That colleague was on the floor, he on the couch.

He said it was a nightmare. Yesterday morning there didn’t seem to be a speck in the air. The teachers had been doing fieldwork with students for two weeks and were very excited to go home.

,,We were already ready to board. The plane was ready, we saw people getting off. Everything went smoothly. But then my colleague got a message from his wife. Here in the Netherlands, KLM had announced that they were going to cancel 42 flights. We didn’t know anything about it yet, but panic soon arose. With us and with fellow travelers. Suddenly people started running,” he says.

They too decided to go to the KLM counter in a flash to rebook the flight. ,,We got to that counter pretty quickly and saw the line growing behind us. We were able to get a flight for this morning, but there were also people who had to fly via Zurich, for example, and had to wait hours at the airport.”

They tried to get a hotel in Barcelona, ​​but everything was full, expensive or far from the airport. Because the question was whether the flight would go ahead this morning, they bought an extra ticket from Vueling just to be sure. ,,It’s a waste of money, but we really really wanted to go home after being away for two weeks. We both have young children so yes, we really wanted to be home for the Whitsun weekend. But first sleep and shower.”

Paul Wijngaard also has nothing good to say about KLM’s action. He was in Oslo for a week to visit his student daughter. He was also through the gate yesterday and was told at the very last minute that the KLM flight was cancelled. “It was a nightmare. You don’t get to speak to anyone anywhere, you really have no idea what to do. The website and app provided no options and KLM could not be reached by phone.”

Finally, he ended up at the counter of the airline SAS, where he was told that he would be taken to a hotel in Oslo where he could spend the night. This morning he was told that he had a flight to Amsterdam and could leave at the end of the morning. He also bought an extra ticket to make sure he could go home. “It is a waste of money, but I had little faith in it.”

KLM’s action has caused a lot of bad blood in him. His advice to everyone is to avoid Schiphol and KLM altogether. “What a mismanagement there,” he says.

Van de Schootbrugge has had the same feeling. He has to go to Stockholm for work at the end of June and is already holding his breath. ,,I have always flown with KLM and from Schiphol, but now something has snapped. I find this really too bizarre for words. That you might cancel a flight is okay but so many flights and for such crazy reasons.”

KLM itself says it finds it a very unpleasant situation for the injured passengers. No fewer than 42 aircraft flew empty from various European destinations to Amsterdam. The spokesperson does not dare to say how many victims are involved. It will probably soon be thousands of people. According to the airline, the measure was necessary because of unfavorable weather conditions and runway maintenance. “We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” he said.

The spokesperson cannot answer whether the inconvenience will be compensated. According to him, KLM is currently mainly busy getting people to their destination as quickly as possible. Some victims are back in the country, but work is still being done on rebooking people.

According to Aviclaim, which conducts legal proceedings against airlines on behalf of victims of travellers, injured travelers are entitled to compensation. There would be denied boarding, unless KLM can demonstrate that aircraft flew empty to Amsterdam for safety reasons. Remco Kuilman: ,,We already see in the communication that KLM places the blame on external influences, so we suspect that they will make it difficult to pay out here and there.”

Aviclaim says it has received many reports in recent days from people who want to file a claim. “There have been 300 people registered in the last few days. Not only because of the KLM misery, but also because of the misery at Schiphol.”