KLM overbooking

Seven of us flew by KLM 838B from Jakarta on June 18 to London via Amsterdam. As advised, we were required to reconfirm our connecting flights within 72 hours at the latest. Of course on June 20, we reconfirmed in London and on June 23 upon our arrival in Amsterdam as our next destination we also reconfirmed, on July 5 upon our arrival in Nice we reconfirmed and we finally reconfirmed on July 9 in Paris. We constantly reconfirmed for two reasons, namely it was high season and we had requested seats with adequate leg room which are often difficult to get.

When we left Paris for Jakarta via Amsterdam we checked in at Paris Charles De Gaulle as among the first passengers, we were issued boarding passes for a connecting flight from Paris -- Singapore -- Jakarta for only five of us, not seven. We were already suspicious but the ground crew assured us that we had a confirmed booking and we were given a standby boarding pass to be changed at the transfer desk upon our arrival in Amsterdam.

Trusting the KLM crew we boarded and upon landing at Schippol, we hurried to the transfer desk where they advised us we would be assigned seats at the gate. We waited until the gate opened and then immediately checked in, handing the two standby boarding passes to the crew.

We were asked to proceed to the waiting lounge, where we were told to wait for our seat allocation and again they reassured us that because of our confirmed status we would be given top priority. We waited and to our anger and disappointment we were finally told that the plane was overbooked and we had to fly the next day.

Of course we did not accept it but they insisted that we could not board because of overbooking. In the end we had to accept the bitter fact of having to fly the next day, all seven of us -- our poor family. KLM, which is supposed to be one of the better airlines, apparently made a silly blunder like overbooking which resulted in a terrible experience for us.

HARRY G. OESEP

Jakarta