This post is a copy of an item from my News Blog.

I got home tonight just after mid-night (so technically the 13^th, not the 12^th) after a nightmare journey home, thanks to KLM.

I was booked on the 18:40 from Schiphol to Munich, and arrived at the airport, already with a boarding pass after checking in online, 35 minutes before the last time that I could check my luggage in: 17:59, which should have been plenty of time . My bag is too big for hand-luggage, and contained several toiletry items that exceeded the 100ml limit, so checking it in for transport in the hold was my only option.

It took about 4 minutes to reach the queue to check my bag. I then queued for 20 minutes, and the machine issued me a baggage tag at precisely 17:48 (confirmed by the woman at KLM's ticket desk). Unfortunately, the machine refused to take my bag, and with no explanation, told me to go to the service desk, where I queued for another 20 minutes, by when it was too late to check my bag. I was sent to the ticket desk to rebook my flight.

At the ticket desk, only 2 of the six desks were open, so I had to queue for another 25 minutes. The lady at the desk told me that it was all my fault, because I hadn't arrived at the airport 2 hours before my flight. She rebooked me onto the 21:00 flight to Munich. She also told me that, because, in her opinion, it was my fault, she should charge me a rebooking fee, and that she was doing me a favour my not doing so.

Firstly, the arrival 2 hours before the flight is only meant to be in cases where you still need to check-in and get your boarding pass, and I already had a boarding pass. 35 minutes should be plenty of time to check a bag which, although too big for hand-baggage, is actually small for hold luggage and requires no special handling. I checked my bag 11 minutes before the deadline, which proves that I was at the airport early enough.

Secondly, at the service desk, when I finally reached the front of the queue, there were still 30 minutes until departure: plenty of time to load a bag. At Munich airport, they would have phoned someone, and been granted an exception to accept a late bag.

Finally, the idea that I should have to pay, because of a failure of a machine checking in bags is outrageous. If there had been no other option to fly Friday night, then KLM would not have been prepared to pay for a hotel and dinner, and that would have been all at my expense.

As a result of this debacle, the plans that Sheryl and I had, for her to meet me at Munich airport and to have dinner together there, were trashed. My whole evening and my dinner were stolen from me by KLM. I was still raging angry when I got home, and it took quite a while for me to calm down enough to sleep.

The purser and once of the stewards on my 9pm flight were very sympathetic to my plight, but couldn't do anything to help; thanks for trying, though, guys.

I was forced to eat in Schiphol airport, and that food was disgusting (see my food blog).

When I lived in the Netherlands (from 1994 to 1996), I flew KLM often. They were a great airline, but since then things have changed: being taken over by Air France is the cause of much of the deterioration in service.

I will certainly be rethinking flying with KLM in future, and will be filing a complaint.