“Due to a power outage at Amsterdam, some of our flight schedules may be temporarily disrupted. If you have booked a flight to, from or via Amsterdam on Wednesday 28 February 2018, please see below rebook and refund options we can offer you. These options are only valid, if you have a ticket originally issued on or before Wednesday 28 February 2018.”
Power Failure Disrupts Operations of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines — Travel Waivers Issued
That is the message which was posted earlier today at the official Internet web site of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines — as well as “You are entitled to a full refund of your ticket if you are travelling to, from or via the above mentioned location on Wednesday 28 February 2018, and your flight was cancelled by KLM, AIR FRANCE and/or Delta Air Lines, or was delayed for more than 3 hours and you did not travel.”
Dozens of flights had already been cancelled or delayed as a result.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018 is the last day on which tickets must be reissued and rebooked travel must begin.
A similar alert — as well as a travel waiver — was issued by Delta Air Lines; although the disruption was caused by what Delta Air Lines interestingly calls a “KLM IT failure”.
Not helping the situation at all is adverse inclement weather which has affected Amsterdam. Travel waivers have also been issued due toe the “unexpected snowfall” which occurred earlier today, Wednesday, February 28, 2018.
Summary
Delta Air Lines suffered from meltdowns due to a fire which shut down its hub airport in Atlanta for 12 hours on December 17, 2017 and the colossal failure of its operations throughout its entire system in August of 2016 which lasted several days. What occurred in Amsterdam does not appear to be even remotely close to as serious as what happened in Atlanta.
Hopefully, your travels were not adversely affected by the irregular operations caused by the power outage or failure of information technology of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines; and if they were, I hope that they were completely resolved as soon as possible.
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
