Tuesday, October 30, 2007

How the KLM pisses off their customers

Thriller author Catherine Sampson tells on her weblog the problems her parents went through when they expected a KLM-flight from Beijing to Europe, but fell into the hands of its partner China Southern.
We went away....were recalled by an excited Miss Wang to the airport at 5.40 and.... eventually my parents, who hadn't eaten since 1.00, were airborne somewhere around 8 o'clock at night.
Read the full story here (and do not forget the comments). What makes it annoying is that the KLM takes no responsibility whatsoever for its partner. You pay for a KLM-ticket but are handed over to a sloppy Chinese airliner.
In my earlier entry about Catherine's book "The Pool of Unease" I could not give the url of Amazon, but here it is now. You can also buy it directly at her website.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure about the journey between Amsterdam and Beijing, but I am very familiar with Amsterdam to KL.

There are differeces in prices. I generally pay the higher price and have KLM flights both ways. Or pay lower price to have KLM and Malaysian airline combo. OR even cheaper if I prefer to have Malaysian airline both ways. BUT when I do pay cheap price I KNOW I would not get the same service as KLM. Malaysian airline is not a bad airline, but the service, especially ground crews, has been lacking the past year or so.

If one choses to pay for the cheap tickets, it is true that KLM only handles the purchase of the ticket, and the rest is up to the partners to provide such as check-in, sloppy services etc. KLM CANNOT interferes how another airline chooses to serve their customers. And that is why KLM is careful in choosing their partners. I suppose China is not giving much choices???

Well, I suppose KLM has the choice not to partner with local partners such as Malaysian Airline or China airline (Sorry I forgot the name of the Chinese airline). The point is passengers should also take some responsibilities.

There is ALWAYS a price to have something cheap. Quality usually is the first to go. Recently there is a report on pilot training (I do not have the name or url of the article published on International Herald). Airlines from China (and some other airlines) are going to have new pilots that have very little actual flying time to join the fleet. Their experience would be mostly flight simulations. I don't think KLM is choosing that route. Or most of the major airlines. But airlines from China are.

There is always a price to pay for CHEAP. Take another example of those cheap airlines such as Ryan of Ireland etc. You have to pay for your drinks and food. Which I do not really mind. BUT, most time you ended up in some obscure locations THESE are all added cost in term of money, time, stresses on your body and soul ... Are they worth it? I really don't think so.

So, fly cheap. Then pay the price and not blame KLM.

People have to start taking responsibilities of WANTING cheap, cheap, cheap.