I wanted to visit Amsterdam and Paris in my one week vacation (13-20 November 2010 - KLM 1614-1233-1234-1617 flights). As I had a redeem coupon from Delta, I used delta.com to reserve for KLM flights. I used my coupon and paid for the rest using my credit card. And my nightmare had started accordingly.

1 month to my flights, as a coincedence I checked my reservations through delta.com. I realized that they were all gone. I tried to fix it through the site with no success. Then, I called local delta office in Turkey. After spending some time on the phone, they stated that there was an error in the information flow between delta and klm, but they fixed it. I said ok and hoped that this was an exception.

1 week to my flights, I wanted to check my reservations as I did not want to have any surprise on the date of my departure. I logged to delta.com and found out that my reservations were gone, second time. I called the local office, but they could not solve the issue at once. They called me half an hour later and stated that there was a problem with the information flow from klm, but they fixed it. They also gave me my klm reservation numbers so that I can directly see my flight info through klm website. They said that this problem will not repeat as I have klm reservation numbers and I no more need to access my info through delta.

Hopefully, I did not have any problem when I departed from istanbul. However, returning back was a nightmare. In Paris, I wanted to check in using my print outs from klm website. Self-checkin desks did not accept my reservation number. Then I went to the check in desk and asked for help. In about half an hour, the lady made couple of phone calls and said that there was some kind of a problem and she could only fixed the problem partially. She gave me boarding passes for my wife but said that there was a problem with my ticket, she could not check that in. She gave me printout tickets for paris-amsterdam and amsterdam-istanbul flights and told me that I can get on paris-amsterdam plane with temp boarding pass (valid with printout) but I need to get my amsterdam-istanbul pass in amsterdam.
We went to amsterdam and reached the transfer desk and conveyed our problem. We also wanted to sit together with my wife, as this was a long flight. The clerk was so rude with negative attitude, did not help at all and stated that we could only change seats at the gate. We went to gate and asked for help. After some discussion, we managed to sit together as a "favor" from klm. As we were boarding and hoping that our trip is over, one of the klm reps approached us and asked if we were together. When we said yes, she wanted us to select one of our hand luggages to be checked in and go with the cargo. We said each of us carrying only one hand luggage less than 12kg, completely in line with klm regulations. She kept saying the flight is fully booked and some of the luggages needed to be checked in. I think we were the ones that won this random lottery. She really enforced us to drop one of the luggages with extremely rude and negative attitude.

When I look back and consider the time I spent dealing with klm and delta (at least 7-8 hours), I really think that the ticket price was a peanut considering my valuable time spent. About sky team, they do not communicate each other, they do not learn from their mistakes and they show no sign of being a team at all. About klm, they are rude, they are not helpful, they never offer you a solution. Hope this letter improves customer services of both companies.