The World Around Me

On April 6th, my family was scheduled to fly from Toronto Canada to Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Via KLM and Kenya Airways. My husband is the Project Manager for a UN sanctioned construction project in the DRC, and has been in the Congo since September 2008. My husbands employer informed us that our VISA’s for the DRC were ready and would be awaiting us at the Lubumbashi International airport upon our arrival.

We arrived at Pearson International Airport over 3 hours before our scheduled flight as we had a large amount of luggage and 3 small children, and wished to make sure that everything went smoothly at check in. Upon our arrival at the check in desk, there was an extensive line up and a KLM employee approached us and offered us expedited check in through the business class desk, and the use of the business lounge for a price of $25 per adult. We decided that this would be worth the money, if only to get us out of the huge line up at the economy desk. We paid the fee and pushed our trolleys to the business class line up as directed by the KLM rep. There was only one group ahead of us, so we expected to get through the check in process within minutes. Little did we know that the group of 3 people ahead of us was a film crew for Discovery Channel with an industrial sized trolley piled almost 2meters high with equipment. We stood in the line behind this group for 55 minutes, while the economy line emptied several times. Finally, the KLM staff opened a second check in desk for the Business Class line up.

When invited, I approached the desk with tickets and passports in hand for our family. To begin with the woman at the desk was quite surly and abrupt, my attempts at friendly banter were either ignored or met with monosyllabic responses. When the woman asked for our final destination and for copies of our VISA’s, I explained to her that my husbands employer had stated that the VISA’s were awaiting our arrival in the DRC.   At this point the woman became even more abrupt and stated that we could not fly on KLM without proof of these VISA’s before departure, and she literally tried to shoo me out of the line.    My husband then came forward and very politely explained the situation again and asked to speak to a manager to find out if there was anyway to fix this very large problem. The KLM representative then stomped off to “find a manager”.

I would like to take a moment now to talk about this issue. We now realize that we DID need to have a physical copy of the VISA’s for KLM to allow us boarding on the flight. The fact that we did not have it available is a responsibility that we whole heartedly accept. At the time we did not realize that it was a problem as my husband had initially flown to the DRC the previous September via British Airways, and when he had the exact same issue with his VISA then, BA allowed him to take the flight regardless. But as I said, ignorance is no excuse.

But for what followed in the next 2 hours there is absolutely NO excuse.

While the KLM Rep went to find a manager, my family waited to the side of the check in area for KLM for 30 minutes. The Rep approached us, and stated that there was nothing they could do if we didn’t have the copies of the VISA’s. My husband again calmly explained to her all the details again and begged her to help us find a way to board this flight. My husband was directed to a Customer Service counter and told that a manager would speak to him to try to resolve the problem. Nick again explained all the details to the manager and she said that she would see what she could do. Then she disappeared into a back office. An hour later my husband was still standing at the customer service desk and with just 5 minutes until the boarding gate closed we realized that there was no possible way that we could make our flight. We also realized that the manager had deliberately disappeared into the office until this time so that she could then say “Sorry, there is nothing I could do, the gate is now closed”……5 minutes later the same manager returned from the office and walked past my husband, completely ignoring him and went to serve the next customer in line. When my husband finally managed to get her attention, she said “I”m sorry, the Gate is now closed, there is nothing I can do. If you had an official letter from your employer stating that the VISA’s were waiting for you, we might of been able to of done something.”

If your staff at KLM had addressed our problem immediately, instead of keeping us standing in the airport with crying children and piles of luggage for over 3 hours, we could of contacted the office in Lubumbashi and had the documents faxed to the KLM counter, and thus made our flight. I will also add that we also had a difficult time to get our money reimbursed for the Business Class vouchers that we paid for.

But that what we didn’t realize is that this was only the beginning of the fiasco.

As soon as we returned to my parents house we called KLM at their customer service number listed on the KLM web site, and our travel agent who booked our tickets.

Over the course of that evening and the next day we spent more than 5 hours on the phone speaking to 4 different representative of KLM and Northwestern airlines. Each Rep, told us a completely different story, and each Rep SWORE that they had put notes on our account explaining what had happened…. not one of these people actually wrote a single note, and 2 of the 3 Reps out and out lied to us about easily verifiable facts.

After wasting several hours and not getting any thing but more confused and frustrated, we asked our travel agent to intercede on our behalf with her KLM sales rep. She contacted me the next day and was very upset. Not only had the KLM representative REFUSED to do anything to help us, but had even cancelled our tickets and classed us as “No Shows” at the airport so that we were forced to pay $275 per person to get new tickets booked. Our travel agent was appalled that the KLM Rep out and out refused to help us, because she said that in situations like this, she has always relied upon the airline Reps to at least do something to make the situation easier, and commented that this was the first time EVER that she had witnessed this kind of debacle with KLM. It is our guess that someone from KLM did put a note on our account- one that was full of lies . That is the only possibility that explains the horrifying treatment that we have received from KLM.

I just wanted to forget this whole fiasco. My father and husband felt that we should write a letter to KLM, but quite honestly I just wanted to put all of this behind us.

But then this month I’ve been trying to change our return ticket dates and my frustration has driven me to write to you anyway. I have been told that because of KLM’s multi level economy class bookings, our class is booked solid, and to change our return tickets from Sept 6 to August, we will have to pay $1000 per person to upgrade to….. another level of economy class?!? Are you joking Me? We have to pay $5000 to fly back home on tickets we have already paid for in the same economy seats?!? I’m am so shocked and appalled by this, that I’m almost speechless… Almost. I am very tempted to toss our return tickets in the garbage and book new seats on another airline entirely, just so that we can forget this whole disgusting experience.

My husband and I and my father fly all over the world. Up until now I have been a happy KLM client and have been using KLM for my European trips since 1989. But I will never ever fly with KLM again. Besides the initial fiasco at Pearson, having to deal with your either completely incompetent or lying phone reps, and then the sales rep for my travel agent…… No, I’m sorry, I will spend my money else where. My Father is the VP Sales & Marketing of MAS environmental and VP of Qwikcore Inc. out of the UAE, and is about to import 790 employees from across South Asia. He is so incensed by the treatment we have received that he has now banned all of his employees from every flying on KLM again- if they do, they will not be reimbursed on their expense accounts. My father spends and organizes thousands of dollars a month on airline tickets all over the world. The president of MAS and Qwikcore flies weekly between the Middle East, Europe, North America, Africa, and the Caribbean, and only ever travels First/Business Class… he will never use KLM again. I can not even put a dollar figure on the loss of income these incidents will cause KLM just through word of mouth, because travel is such an important part of my families business.

In this day and age of financial recession that has obviously effected the travel industry just as much as every other major industry, I would of thought that the logical thing for an airline to do would be to work hard to keep their loyal clients happy. But apparently KLM thinks that they are above these type of common sense business practises.

Very frustrated and disappointed