European airports have been melting down this month – London Luton literally with a runway melting, but other airports like Amsterdam and London Heathrow becoming impossible to navigate due to lack of staff. London Heathrow has asked airlines to stop selling tickets. So much baggage piled up that Delta ran a flight with just bags to begin sorting the mess out in Detroit.
Amsterdam Schipol sought to impose a passenger cap, but that hasn’t solved its issues. At Amsterdam the checked baggage mess has been so bad that Icelandair has been sending baggage workers on its Amsterdam flights, since Schipol airport lacks the staff in place there to handle the bags.
The problem, though, is that bags get caught up in the airport’s baggage system and there aren’t enough people to keep it running properly.
I landed in Amsterdam and baggage claim is just a grave yard of lost bags 😬 GL to everyone who decided to gamba and check bags for twitchcon pic.twitter.com/KRGl19ZLXs
— Gaylen (@Gaylen) July 14, 2022
As if this all wasn’t bad enough, the airport’s baggage system has broken down – and KLM is telling passengers connecting through its hub that the airport will not accept bags from connecting flights on July 21. That seems to suggest a passenger’s only alternatives are to travel carry on only, or to change their itineraries.
This was sent to me by a reader who received this from KLM in advance of a flight connecting through Amsterdam back to the U.S. on Thursday. From the wording of the message it appears to only apply to customers connecting from one European flight to another, even though it’s being displayed to passengers flying transoceanic. I have contacted KLM for clarification.
This is going to be messy. Many people will not have seen the notice until they arrive at the airport on Thursday. Many more won’t be able to delay, or will have difficulty re-routing. Imagine, for instance, traveling on a Virgin Atlantic-issued award ticket for travel on KLM that needs to be changed by Virgin.
(HT: Jim R)
