Delta Air Lines has been touting their merger with Northwest and Skyteam alliance as a benefit for consumers. On the Skyteam site, along with some of the other self-promotion, is the claim, “SkyTeam helps make your travels smoother, simplified and informed.”
Well, based on a recent Delta-Northwest/Air France-KLM Skyteam debacle, “smoother, simplified and informed” are not exactly the terms I would use.
Editor’s note: The saga that follows is ongoing. Though KLM operates its flights under its own colors, it is not independent. It is part of Air France-KLM. Air France does have offices in the U.S. Further complicating the final outcome for this situation are evolving DOT regulations regarding responsibility for customer service on codeshare flights. Regulations regarding luggage problems clearly place responsibility with the contracting carrier — in this case Delta. But does that responsibility extend to bumping and other customer service areas?
Old Northwest Airlines never set marks for customer relations, especially as far as travel agents are concerned. The airline largely did away with sales representatives, and calls to their sales office result simply in punching in various numbers only to receive canned answers.
However, a recent travel experience lowered their already substandard service to a whole new level.
The clients in question were taking a tour from Amsterdam. Since they were both in their 80s, they wanted the easiest option. At the time, I suggested a Delta-Northwest/Air France-KLM nonstop, casually saying, “It’s not that I think the airline is great, but they do have the only nonstop.” Famous last words.
Their outbound flight was uneventful. The night before their return, however, our agency received a computer message from Delta-Northwest, saying that their reservation had been canceled, and they had been “protected” on a connection via Minneapolis.
I called Delta-Northwest, (KLM has no separate reservations number in the United States), and asked what happened. Apparently the airline had decided to use a smaller aircraft that day, which meant that many people with confirmed tickets, even including nonrefundable tickets, could not be accommodated. The cheerful agent said, well, they will get compensation.
When I argued that these clients were in their 80s and that they would probably prefer the nonstop even to compensation, I was told, by the agent and her supervisor, that there was nothing they could do. They did again indicate, that because it was an EU flight, that the compensation would either be cash, in the amount of several hundred dollars for both of them, or more money if they chose a voucher.
When the clients returned, however, it was a different story. First, the connection Air France-KLM put them on was delayed in Minneapolis. So what might have been about four hours additional travel time, turned into over ten additional hours. But when I asked about compensation, the husband handed me a blue and white card. And only a blue and white card. Printed in English and in Dutch.
Today unforeseen circumstances have made it necessary for us to use a different kind of aircraft for your flight. This unfortunately means that there are not enough seats available and we are forced to offer you an alternative flight to your final destination. We offer you our apologies for the situation this causes for you.
Because your flights will be departing from an EU country, you are entitled to compensation, which you can receive via Air France-KLM customer care. Please visit www.klm.com to contact customer care in your country of residence.
Despite this inconvenience we wish you a pleasant trip and hope you will continue to use KLM and Skyteam.
Well, leaving aside the fact that not everyone, especially people in their 80s, use computers, this was not exactly the “compensation at the airport” they were promised.
In addition, I am a pretty good computer researcher, and it took quite a while on the klm.com website to even find any contact information. The site allowed you to print out a brochure showing the rules, and on page 6 of the brochure, there were directions to a different part of the site for instructions on how to contact KLM. There was a phone number, but after calling and going through the phone tree (press one, press two, etc.) I got the “due to high call volume we are unable to take your call at this time” response.
So I told the client I would email for him. After all KLM had a statement that if “you choose to contact Customer Car by email, you will receive a response within five days.”
So, I wrote Customer Care a detailed email, including ticket numbers so they could access the information. A week later, after no response, the client and I went back to the site again. Called the phone number again. Same response.
The next step, calling Delta-Northwest Airlines and asking a supervisor what the next step was. She offered the phone number, I explained that it wasn’t being answered. To her credit she was apologetic, said that was the only number they had too, but she gave us information on how to get a form faxed to us.
The fun continued. The form required a fair amount of information, ticket numbers, flights, explanation, etc. And it said we would receive a response by mail, in “approximately 30 days.” So I filled it out with information from our computer files and faxed it in.
This was about 35 days ago. And who knows? We may actually get a response sometime soon. But nothing yet, not even the little postcard that some airlines send saying “We have received your correspondence and will get back to you.” And surprise, surprise, the message saying that “due to a high call volume….” is still the only phone response I can get.
Legally, Air France-KLM is on the hook for compensation, so as frustrating as this is, I feel pretty confident the client will eventually get something, although as he says, “Time does matter here, I’m so old I don’t even buy green bananas.”
The fact that KLM has no real U.S. presence other than Delta-Northwest also has limited the possibilities for human intervention. (I will try top contact Air France with the hopes of uncovering a human being.) One nice, but admittedly helpless, Delta-Northwest agent suggested that maybe I try to find out if KLM had a number in the Netherlands and call them. (Besides the cost and time difference, I can’t imagine they answer that number any more than they answer their U.S. number.)
And I have to wonder if this is the point. Make the process complicated and cumbersome enough, and some number of clients will give up. Especially when a non-frequent travel may not know there are specific customer service laws about flights leaving the EU and the interlocking ownership matrix.
While the idealist in me would like to think that as Delta and Skyteam fine tune their alliances that this sort of problem won’t happen this often, the realist in me says, this is the codeshare wave of the future.
