Weeping passengers driven to distraction by airport chaos - Greg Wright

The day had started so well. After we touched down in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport after a smooth nine hour flight following a two week trip to Seattle, we seemed set for a short and trouble-free final leg of our journey home to Yorkshire. Instead, we faced delay and confusion, which left passengers distraught and in search of compensation.

These scenes have been repeated across airports worldwide, as the sector has struggled to ramp up its operations following the deep freeze of the Covid lockdowns.

But you have to be at the heart of the storm to appreciate its impact on loyal customers who just want to fly home with all their possessions. They don’t deserve to be driven to distraction by terrible customer service.

Things started going wrong when our scheduled flight to Manchester was delayed and then cancelled by KLM at a few minutes’ notice. Communication with customers was dire. There was no apparent plan in place to re-book passengers on another flight. Many travellers had flown long distances and were clearly at the end of their tether.

With luck – and help from a KLM staff member who did rise to the challenge – we managed to secure seats on the last flight of the day to Leeds Bradford airport. But there was still chaos around us. We were much luckier than many of our fellow travellers. According to one of the public announcements, passengers on another cancelled flight to the UK were not being offered hotel accommodation. They presumably faced a bleak night in the airport. Other passengers were simply told “to check their device” for updates.

When we finally touched down, I was dismayed – although perhaps not entirely surprised – to discover that my bag had not accompanied me. Naively, I believed that the airline would swiftly trace it (you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce its location) and return it to me.

I made phone calls. I sent detailed messages with requests for help. Nothing. A stony silence prevailed. In the end, fuelled by anger and desperation, I took to Twitter to demand action and contacted KLM’s press office.

Almost a week after I last saw my bag in Seattle, I finally made contact with a KLM representative who expressed regret at my frustrations and said he would do all he could to help, but could not offer a timeframe for getting the bag back. A KLM spokesman said he would look into the reasons for the flight cancellations.

Would anyone have responded if I had not taken to social media, I wonder? My original requests for help – which included a form filled in on arrival at Leeds Bradford airport – simply went unanswered.

I’m still haunted by the faces of the tearful passengers in Amsterdam and the pained expressions of those travellers who, like me, had arrived at an airport late at night to find their luggage was still a long way from home. It was a trip to remember, but for all the wrong reasons.

*Greg Wright is deputy business editor of The Yorkshire Post