If you have followed my blog, you know by now that I have started to dislike flying a lot in the last few years. Ever since the financial crisis went from Wall Street to Main Street airlines have been trying to cope with the fact that fuel prices went up and fewer people can afford travelling internationally. On top of that their service is getting really crappy as well. Believe me: airlines are trying to pinch every penny.
I also think this is wrong; instead of raising prices and lowering service overall to a lousy level (paying $5 for a beer, paying $60 for a second bag on international/intercontinental flights, smaller seats etc. etc.), they should go for more volume by lowering prices: i.e. making it more interesting again to fly, so more people will take a plane which should make up for dwindling passenger numbers.
But I digress; the reason I’m writing this blog-entry, is that my girlfriend is currently visiting me here in Holland. She flew on a joint Delta Airlines/KLM flight (part of Sky Team) last Saturday and she had a pretty crappy experience with them.
You see, my girlfriend has a disability where she can’t walk a lot and so she uses a cane and when we are travelling, a wheelchair. That way I can push her around pretty fast and when she is up to it, she can walk behind it. So basically it helps her a lot with her mobility and in that sense you can call it an extra set of legs.
So you can imagine that travelling alone and getting from check-in to the gate and all that is a lot faster and easier for her with a wheelchair.
Well, believe it or not, when she flew from Atlanta to Amsterdam, the airline (KLM) did not allow her to put her wheelchair in the cabin. Which is weird because the plane was three times as big as the one that flew her from Tallahassee to Atlanta and they (Delta) did put it in the cabin; no problem.
So during check in at the gate in Atlanta, KLM told her that the wheelchair needed to be checked in to the cargo space. Which is very annoying because A) it won’t be available when you are unboarding the plane, and B) you all have seen how those guys throw around your luggage so you are sure to get you wheelchair back with dents and scratches. Even though she begged not to put it in cargo KLM kept insisting it had to and so they slapped a sticker on it and took it away.
So when she unboarded the plane she had to walk out by herself, without her wheelchair, go through immigration and to the baggage claim. I was waiting there for her to arrive and saw her luggage go around on the belt, long before she got there.
So finally she arrived and we saw each other behind the glass standing and waiting. Her luggage was there, but the wheelchair wasn’t.
Yes, Delta/KLM lost her wheelchair on the way to Amsterdam. WTF?
After waiting for 2,5 hours they finally told her to fill out a form and wait for them to find it. Most likely it never got on the plane in Atlanta, as the guys unloading the plane were very adamant that it wasn’t on there.
Off course everyone apologized, but I was amazed at how lackadaisical they where about the whole incident. Nobody seemed to really care and or put in any extra effort into finding it.
As before I already twittered about it while I was still at Schiphol (had to kill some time anyway). And as before with my other tweets in which I complain, I got an immediate answer from both @DeltaAssist and @KLM. They wanted to know details and said they would try to find out what happened.
So between Saturday and Monday night we called many times and tried to find out what the hell happened to the chair. As KLM never gave my girlfriend a receipt of the fact they took it away from her and the wheelchair is brand new, we feared the worst.
Luckily my dad and step-mom had a rollator on loan, so when we left for Bruges, Belgium, at least we had a backup.
Then Monday night we received the call they found it and it would be available next day. After some thinking we decided to have it delivered on Thursday, so it would not cut our trip short.
To cut a long story short: I still am pretty mad at Delta/KLM. And so far they have not contacted my girlfriend directly (just through Twitter).
They did offer apologies and even said that they would like to make an official complaint on her behalf, but I don’t believe in complaints: I believe in compensation. I mean: we are not talking about loosing a bag. They lost a wheelchair and cut short someone’s mobility and as such quality of life and feeling of independence.
So let’s see what happens in the next few days.
All I know is that in the next days we will be at least be at our next holiday destination (Berlin) with a wheelchair.
| UPDATE: May 28th 2012 |
After our complaint KLM has compensated my girlfriend and me, with a Travel Credit Voucher, which is very nice. Most likely I will use it to fly to the US as she is fed up with flying after this latest ordeal.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this kind of stuff. Always unpleasant when it happens 🙁
There is a middle ground – Get your girlfriend to ask to “gate check” her chair. That’s what I do. Basically I use my wheelchair all the way to the plane’s gate. It goes in cargo, but it goes in last, and it’s taken out first. So I have the chair as soon as I de-plane.
There’s still a risk of damage, but it’s a lot less risky.
And complaints often lead to compensation. When my wheel was damaged by Air New Zealand, lodging a complaint led to them paying to get the wheels replaced.
Hi Nic,
Thanks for the feedback.
Basically this is what happened: as they told her at the gate she could not take it on the plane they did put it in cargo. And still they lost it.
Her old wheelchair was really messed up by traveling here a few times and this is a brand new one…
Anyhow: she will do this on the way back…
Br,
Henk