Hi, I wondered whether anyone could help?


I booked traveller assistance for my grandmother; she was travelling from London Heathrow to Osaka, Japan via Amsterdam (flying KLM) – alone, has never traveled before and has recently had knee replacement surgery.



We checked in and arrived at passenger assistance with 1 hour and 10 minutes until her flight time. They took a note of her boarding pass/flight time etc. After waiting 10 minutes I went to check that they had her details and that we would be called when her assistance was ready, I joked that she ‘wouldn’t miss her flight’, which I received a ‘no – not at all’ response. I waited until her wheelchair arrived and left the airport.


She later telephoned me and said that she had indeed missed her flight. I contacted via telephone passenger assistance and they said:


1) ‘Lots of passengers that morning’.
2) She was subject to a random security check (I have checked this with my gran and she wasn’t) which, they claimed, took longer and that they were very sorry.


She has now been at at Heathrow for 9 hours waiting for another flight, has had her lock on her case broken and has had to pay another ‘excess luggage’ charge. She is obviously distressed and has found the whole experience extremely stressful (as you can imagine).


I am wondering whether we have any recompense with passenger assistance OR klm, if this was the norm or the risk with booking such a service and what we can do to make her return journey run smoothly?

Many thanks
Danielle