All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Right now we should be sitting at about 35000 feet en route to Amsterdam.

But we're not. :mad:

Last week we redeemed some mileage for tickets to Teesside, via Amsterdam, on KLM. We couldn't get quite the itinerary we wanted, so they very agreeably offered us business class tickets (just one way - return in economy) for the same mileage redemption as economy. I dont' like flying business class with the kids - they're always extremely well behaved on the plane, but I can't relax, just in case they're not - I am a lot hapier in economy. But this was the only way to get the itinerary we needed, and it seemed a bit silly to look a gift horse in the mouth. We're travelling with an infant, so they told us we had to buy her a paper ticket seperately, which we did, and happily paid the uplift for her being in business class too.

So we turned up at the airport today, 2.15 hours before the flight to be told we couldn't go on it - apparently we had been booked on flight that is all business class (a 737 with 44 business seats, no economy) and infants aren't allowed on. We were told there have been complaints about infants in the past, so now they don't allow them. Unless we wanted to buy her a full seat ($6000 one way) which case apparently no-one would complain..... :rolleyes: (how frigging 3rd world is that??? :mad: )

So we have been rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon - in business class on a 747 :confused: Does that mean business class passengers on 737's hate kids, but those on 747's don't...?? So we had explain to a very tearful 5 year old why we're not getting on a plane to go see grandma tomorrow, cart all our stuff back from the airport, etc etc and go back tomorrow and try again.

I cannot believe that they are allowed to do that - we have a bought and paid for ticket for my daughter, and they literally told us it meant nothing, and effectively tore it up in front of us. The manager of the check in desk claimed it should never have been issued - it was a mistake. My restrained response of "well you sold us it - don't you think you should honour it?" was met with a straight "no - we will not do that - you will not be able to fly tonight".

Dishonesty is one thing that gets right up my hooter, and as far as I'm concerned, KLM have gone right to the top of my sh1tlist for absolute and total dishonesty and untrustworthiness (is that a word?) How the hell can they operate a system whereby they issue tickets, take payment, but you don't know whether they are going to honour them till you turn up at the airport. It's unbelievable.

Sorry for the long one - rant over.

Kid haters can now commence slagging me off for wanting to take the kdis to see their family.

And anyone in the travel industry is welcome to chime in with advice as to what, if anything, we can do.

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

There's a few threads that Englishmum has posted links to a flight forum, can't remember the name off hand, but that could be a good place to find out what best course of action could be, and who to complain to etc..

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

didn't you realise that you're a second class citizen when you have kids....
this is utterly disgusting and you need to complain......
what is it about taking kids on an airplane that makes us feel embarressed :o ....we shouldn't do....I normally spend 9 hours on the flight to see my parents worrying what other people think(even though my kids are well behaved too)I'm sure your kids are great and the only trouble they will have is the excitment that they are seeing their gran!....as for this flight company.....tsk!....I'd contact the press that'll get their back up :p

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Have you not thought that it may have been a simple mistake by the people who booked (and upgraded) you?

There are differing rules for different flights, and a 737 all business is obviously different to a 747 3 class.

I blame the cloggies anyway!

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

You have mt sympathies.

We once flew from Manchester to Jamaica a few years a go for two weeks over xmas and new year. Pre booked the seats for the front of the plane so we had extra leg room (14 hour flight). When we booked the upgrade we mentioned we had an 8 year old flying with us..."Oh no problem sir none at all. Whats your credit card? Thank you that will be xxxxx pounds."

So we turn up at the airport and check in to be told "Sorry under 16's cant sit there in case they block the exit. So we have moved her. You and your wife can sit there but your daughter is now 15 rows further back on her own." WTF!??!?! You didnt mention this or care about it when you took our money!

So they basically wanted an 8 year old to spend a 14 hour flight 15 rows away from her parents seated between two complete strangers!! While they gave her seat, that we had already paid a substantial amount to upgrade to, to another stranger who would be sat between me and my wife! I dont bloody think so! The smarmy and obnoxious supervisor at the check in desk completely refused to give us our seats that we had booked and paid for and couldnt see the problem in the arrangement. It was only the very kind air crew that could'nt believe it and rearranged us to our paid for seats once on the plane. Needless to say we havent flow with them since.

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

I'm astonished......how disgusting of the airline to treat you like that. I'd be tempted to sue the airline to be honest.

Yes, the website is:

http://www.flyertalk.com (will need to register to post)

A lot of people in the airline and travel industry post there...I'm sure they will offer some advice.

I read an account once (I think on Flyertalk) about a
16 year old UM who was bumped off a KLM flight which was transiting through Amsterdam and she was left to her own devices at a budget hotel....no contact from the airline with her parents back in the US. The parents were horrified that a sexual predator could easily have taken advantage of her. It might be worth searching the archives to find out how it was dealt with.

Condolences to you Yorkie....what a load of hassle.

And the business-class only Singapore Airlines service from Newark - Sing definitely allows young children on board as I've seen the families checking in.....and as I knew you also lived in Sing we know that it's a far classier airline than KLM....

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Maybe it was a mistake - clearly something went wrong - but it was one that was repeated by at least 3 people that we spoke with (the original one that took the adult bookings and told us how to buy the infant ticket, the one that we spoke to about childrens meals and a bassinette, and the one that issued the infants ticket and took our money). So it sounds as if the mistake is in staff training - not ensuring that the people issuing the tickets are aware of the rules!

Frankly, if you make a mistake, you live with it - particularly if you have entered into a contract. Its not even as if the no infants the "rule" was a hard and fast one, as they were prepared to break it if we paid up! That counts as blackmail in my book.............

Maybe the tw@t that refused us boarding was just having a bad day as the Netherlands went down to Portual :D Would explain why he couldn't even bring himself to apologise for the inconvenience.....

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

I drafted a letter and an email last night (well, nothing else to do - no other plans :( ). Just trying to decide what direction to fire them in.....the letter will go to someone senior at the airline, the email is a "dangly hook" to see if I can get some bored journalist interested..... they'd have to be bored cos lets face it, its hardly front page news ;) :D

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

What airline was that with? When my daughter was younger she sometimes flew unaccompanied to join me in the UK. She flew with BA and they always ensured that she had a full row of seats to herself. I assumed this was because they didn't want any incidences of child abuse whilst a minor is travelling on the plane. On one occasion the plane was full and someone tried to move and sit by her....they were told to return to their seat.

The 3 of us have been upgraded many times by BA and Virgin.

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Funnily enough, KLM did a similar thing to us last time back - 5 of us flying (4 seats + infant) and they put 3 of us together on a bulkhead, and 1 of us 7 halfway down the plane (I actually thought it was pretty good - had high hopes for a quiet flight while the missus had all 3 kids!!). The check in folk wouldn't do anything about it (there was a bit of "computer says no" about it), but the cabin crew were great and rearranged a few seats so everyone was happy. A lot of people slag KLM, but we've always found the cabin crew to be good - its just the groundstaff that are f***wits.

Problem we have is that we're running out of airlines to blacklist. if this keeps up, we're either going to have to go back to BA, or move back to Asia :D

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Ps I should have added - they did tell us we couldn't have a bassinette - but because the baby was too big, not because they don't allow infants on the plane.......

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Thanks for the link - I'll post on there and see what gives.

Thats scarey about the 16 year old - what the hell were they thinking?

Singapore airlines - ah, those were the days............

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Airline desk staff are amongst the worst in the world as far as customer service is concerned. Way too much power IMO. Just watch a few episodes of Airline on A&E to get an idea.

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

totally agree - the whole time this jerk was telling us we couldn't get on the plane he had this smirk on his face. It may have been his natural expression, but I don't think so.....and during the whole epsiode, we didn't get a hint of an apology. In fact he made us feel the guilty party for trying to smuggle an infant on the plane...I wish we'd gone with our original thought and stuffed her in the carry-on :D

Off to the airport now to try again. Just hope its not groundhog day.....

If I'm posting again in a couple of hours, the swearing censors are gonna be working overtime.....

Re: All you folk who hate kids on planes are gonna love this.....
 

Good Luck.