12 May 2003
Sorry, overbooking just isn’t acceptable
If you want a relaxing, restful holiday, don’t fly anywhere. You are quite likely to have a problem – and that problem will not be terrorists, it will be the airlines.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I flew from Norwich International to Amsterdam with KLM. As air journeys go, this is as straightforward as it gets – but it proved totally beyond the wit of the airline to organise it properly.
When we checked in 90 minutes early at Schiphol for our return flight, we were told it was overbooked, and our seat “could not be guaranteed”.
This was related as if overbooking were some kind of cosmic phenomenon beyond the control of human beings. In fact, of course, it is just the airline being greedy. Someone – possibly elves or fairies – had booked 61 people on to a 50-seater plane.
The airline does not think this matters. After all, the unlucky ones could be put on a flight to London the following morning and be driven back to Norwich – all at KLM’s expense, including cash compensation and a night in a not uncomfortable hotel.
We refused the flight to London. When I travel from Norwich to Amsterdam and back, I do not intend to go anywhere near London. Eventually we were put on a flight the following afternoon, 20 hours later, to Norwich.
As far as KLM was concerned, it was all over. Problem solved. As far as we were concerned, it meant we had to find KLM Arrivals at Schiphol, which meant we had to get on the end of a long queue at passport control (and that, believe me, is extremely annoying when you haven’t been anywhere).
They fixed us up with a hotel shuttle bus, which we also had to find and which was crammed full and got stuck in traffic.
How can KLM justify overbooking a Friday night flight by more than 20pc? If I paid for a new sofa to arrive next Friday, and next Friday the company rang up and said they had taken cash for 50 sofas when they knew they only had 40, I would be extremely upset. Why should KLM think I will not be upset with them?
And I was not alone in my anger. There was the Norwich family who had left Houston 30 hours before and had been split in two, the man from Siberia, the woman from Johannesburg, the woman who had missed three meetings and the man who needed to be in Bucharest. Among others.
It did not help that our luggage was missing when we reached Norwich, and that the taxi rank was empty.
Bad luck, you say. Indeed. But the result is that I am put off flying, and I am put off Amsterdam. KLM calls itself smugly “the reliable airline”. Presumably an unreliable one would drop you by parachute somewhere at random.
Could someone out there be firing whales at us?
Fresh from his investigation into close encounters with aliens, noted Norfolk explorer Richard ‘Volcano’ Meek has been developing theories concerning two whales being found dead recently – one in Stiffkey and another in Terrington.
His first hypothesis was that these could be aliens who had miscalculated the size of parachute required in the earth’s atmosphere.
The absence of parachute shreds put a rather large hole in this idea, however, and he now feels that a more likely explanation is that scientists have been working on a massive new 200-megablubber bomb. If so, there would obviously be a sinister porpoise – and we all know that the United States is using dolphins in warfare.
Mr Meek reminds us of the well-known artillery technique of bracketing: one shot above, one shot below and then one on target. Since we have had whales in Stiffkey and Terrington, he estimates that the actual target is Bircham Newton. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
You never know when you’ll need Latvian
Fruit-farming is getting much more specialised than it used to be. I see from an advert in the EDP’s JobSearch that a Norfolk company looking for two supervisors and a manager requires not only managerial skills and experience, but that the applicants “must be fluent in Russian, Latvian, Polish and English”.
I am intrigued to know how many people possess this particular combination of abilities. Perhaps it will precipitate a rush by fruit-lovers for joint honours degrees in Russian, Latvian and Polish at the UEA: I understand that there has not been much call for such a degree up to now.
Mind you, I can understand the need for fluent foreign language speakers: there is so much room for misunderstanding. While in Amsterdam, for instance, I noted that the hotel lift was made by a company called Schindler, which made me reluctant to use it, since it would clearly be Schindler’s lift.
I was also a bit taken aback to hear the intrepid Henry the Navigator translated into Henry the Sailor during a canal trip (our canal trip, not his).
Visitors to our own country could easily be confused by a document entitled ‘Daft Lowestoft Cycling Strategy’. Even more so if they travelled by train and heard over the loudspeaker that “very slight refreshments” were available. This did turn out to be “various light refreshments”, but that could be hard to detect if you were Russian, Latvian or Polish. Or even English.
Some good news, though. I am informed by a correspondent that the ‘Waitree’ mentioned last time is in fact Hingham’s answer to rural signposting. Which I suppose explains why it was spotted in Yarmouth.
This unspoilt site is the last place for caravans
Local democracy continues to gasp for breath in North Norfolk, where district councillors still find it necessary to overrule the advice of their officers and the wishes of local people.
As a result, land at Hanworth, a secluded, delightfully quiet and so far unspoilt part of the county, is likely to be infested with 100 caravans on a site created by a farmer.
As I have already mentioned on this page, this is just about the last place you would want to place large numbers of caravans: it would create a hazard on nearby roads and intrude into the peace of the countryside.
No amount of repositioning of the buildings will compensate for that, and questions of drainage and environmental impact still go unanswered.
I hope the change in the make-up of the council following the elections will bring members to their senses at last.