KLM Royal Dutch Airlines recently issued a clarification regarding Kenyan flights that they cancelled mistakenly. KLM is one of the major international airlines that offers scheduled commercial flights between Kenya and The Netherlands.
So KLM claimed that the said alert, which was only meant for customers in Tanzania, was inadvertently and erroneously shared with their customers in Kenya.
“We made a mistake in our rebook policy and initially included Kenya. This is incorrect and we would like to apologize for this,” read the statement.
The notice
The carrier had said that “civil unrest” between Friday and Monday could potentially force flights to be cancelled, before amending its alert to refer to an unspecified “local threat in Tanzania”.
Kenya’s transport minister Kipchumba Murkomen said on Saturday that he had protested to the airline over “this unfounded, false, insensitive and misleading information that paints Kenya in bad light”.
“We will escalate this discussion through diplomatic channels,” he warned in a statement.
Tanzania’s government also criticised the advisory, with the Minister for Works and Transport Makame Mbarawa saying there was no truth to the claims.
“This statement is baseless, alarmist, unfounded, inconsiderate and insensitive and has caused unnecessary fear and panic,” he said in a statement, urging travelers to ignore the advisory.
By Wanjiru Mbaru