MY friends and I spent last weekend in The Hague. We had booked our flights weeks before. However, we were only allowed a window of 30 hours to check in online. Checking in for the return flight was a problem since our accommodation had poor internet connection. Although I tried repeatedly the evening before, eventually I had to go to an internet cafe in the morning (five and a half hours before take-off). I was allocated only a standby boarding pass with no seat.
At Schiphol Airport I was told KLM had overbooked the 15.30 flight to Glasgow. I had lost my place. I also wouldn't get on the 21.15 flight that night. KLM would put me up for the night in a hotel but there were no guarantees about the next morning's 8am flight. My status was now "standby" and apparently I would always be at the end of every queue behind the fully checked-in passengers.
I had thought only unreliable companies did this – not KLM, which still has a reputation to lose. But apparently KLM had had to arrange hotel accommodation the night before for more than 50 passengers who had been "denied boarding" because of overbooking. So it's happening all the time.
A staff member told me all the airlines are now applying this policy to avoid seats flying empty when people don't turn up. But surely, if someone books a place on a specific flight and then neither turns up nor contacts the airline to cancel, then the money wouldn't be refunded. So the airline wouldn't lose the money on that seat anyway.
Over-booking is the airline's attempt to try to get two lots of payment for one seat – even if it means that passengers who have paid for the flight weeks in advance are left stranded.
I'm a relatively experienced traveller. I had to run all over the airport and make my way to the head of different queues to find out what alternatives might be available – no one person took a specific ongoing interest in my case. In the end I managed (by the skin of my teeth – the gates had already closed) to board a flight to Southampton with a connection to Glasgow.
I was lucky – I was travelling back to my home rather than to an unfamiliar part of the world. I had no urgent appointment to keep. Nor was I trying to catch an infrequent connecting flight. However, the completely unethical practice of over-booking is applied indiscriminately and many passengers will be worse affected than I was.
Mary McCabe,
25 Circus Drive, Glasgow.
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