In MAX holiday man On Monday evening, presenter Sybrand Niessen brushed up the shards and debris of the “aviation chaos”. There is no shortage of victims. Holidaymakers who missed their flights on the busy weekends of May and June. Holidaymakers who risk missing out on their holidays in July or August because airlines have started canceling.
In my memory the former holiday man, Frits Bom, went to see the suffering of holidaymakers on site. Hotels in a construction site, rooms with faulty toilets, or a floor covered in cockroaches. And then he solved the problems on the spot. Today’s holiday man sits behind a news desk and presents live in a studio with an audience. By his side MAX ombudsman Jeanine Janssen for an explanation of the rights and the rules. Sometimes a lawyer joins in, and then an employee of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets. Like going to Cash desk is watching.
Cocktail of sorrow
Well, the interests are great. Holidays that (maybe) not take place, that results in a cocktail of suffering, injustice, damage and guilt and someone will have to drink that glass of bitter stuff to the bottom. In the studio a young couple who would go to Valencia. First, the flight home was cancelled. Money Back. After that, the outward journey was also cancelled. Money back again. They rebook. Exactly the same outward and return flight, but now for 440 euros more. The ombudswoman could be brief about it. “That’s not allowed.” She already called the airline and that 440 euros will be returned. She advises other victims to call customer service. That’s going to be something, all on hold.
But who will pay if a plane did depart from Schiphol, but the holiday bookers were still on the ground, waiting in line for security? Schiphol? The tour company? Here the lawyer comes to the table, and she outlines the contours of the “tough” legal battle that will be waged. The travel organization will say that Schiphol must pay for everything, Schiphol will invoke force majeure. The ANVR, the consumer association, legal aid insurers, everyone will demand or claim something. And what do the travelers do in the meantime, who have already paid for the holiday they “looked forward to” and which they “looked forward to for months”? Wait. And, says the lawyer, collect evidence. Keep papers, take pictures of the rows with a clock, and record the reason for the delay. That will be something, all together at the airport.
The alternative, not flying and going on holiday by car, is even less tempting. Now a spokesperson for the ANWB comes to the table and announces that not one, but five black Saturdays are expected in France this year. The horror months of July and August will have “jet-black” weekends, with traffic jams all the way to the horizon. Tip from the ANWB is not: do not go. But: do not leave on Saturday. – usually you book it from Saturday to Saturday – then leave a little later. “Then you drive behind the traffic jam”. Don’t think it will be easy in Italy or Austria. They do “tunnel dosage” there to avoid traffic jams under the mountains and count on a four-hour delay for the A22 along Lake Garda.
Hyper and noisy
Did I also have something nice to say? Well I looked at Jochem in the Clouds (EO), in which comedian Jochem Myjer turned out to be a near-biologist (he studied it for three years) and at least as hyper and loud as biologist-presenter Freek Vonk. He did not stop talking about the enchanting beauty of ‘our Dutch nature’. I should add that he soared in a hot air balloon over a land that seemed empty from that height.
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