This month, European airports have literally been melting down, with a runway melting at London Luton and staff shortages making it impossible to get through Amsterdam and London Heathrow.
Airlines have been directed to halt selling tickets by London Heathrow. In order to start cleaning up the mess in Detroit, Delta ran a flight with only bags because there was so much luggage stacked up.
Amsterdam Although Schipol attempted to impose a passenger cap, this did not resolve its problems. Since Schipol airport doesn’t have enough people on hand to handle the luggage, Icelandair has been deploying baggage handlers on its flights to Amsterdam due to the terrible state of the checked baggage situation there.
The issue, though, is that there aren’t enough staff to maintain the airport’s baggage system, causing bags to become tangled up in it.
I landed in Amsterdam and baggage claim is just a grave yard of lost bags 😬 GL to everyone who decided to gamba and check bags for twitchcon pic.twitter.com/KRGl19ZLXs
— Gaylen (@Gaylen) July 14, 2022
Even worse, the luggage system at the airport has malfunctioned, and KLM is informing travelers connecting through its hub that no bags from connecting flights will be accepted on July 21.
That seems to imply that the only options for a traveler are to fly with only their carry-on luggage or to change their plans.
A reader who received this from KLM ahead of a Thursday trip connecting through Amsterdam back to the United States forwarded it to me.
Even though it is being presented to passengers traveling across the ocean, the message’s language makes it seem as though it only applies to those connecting from one European flight to another. I’ve reached out to KLM for more information.
It’s going to get messy here. Many individuals won’t have noticed the message until they go to the airport on Thursday.
Many more will be unable to delay or will find it challenging to reroute. Consider using an award ticket from Virgin Atlantic for travel on KLM that needs to be altered by Virgin.
Photo cover via Twitter: @Gaylen
