Freelance journalist Tereza Pultarova, from London, arrived at Heathrow Airport in the early hours of this morning to catch a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight to Amsterdam, where she was meant to join a connecting flight to Cape Town, South Africa.
But on arrival at the airport’s Terminal 4, she was faced with queues, delays and confusion as to whether she would be able to make her trip at all.
She said: “We’ve been here since 4.30am we were supposed to be on a 6.30am flight to Amsterdam. Most people on this flight have connecting flights to catch in Amsterdam from all over the world.
“We were kind of stranded here because the weird thing is, KLM wasn’t able to issue us boarding passes digitally and requested us to collect them at the check-in desk.
“And then they told us that there is some sort of global issue with the system they’re using for check-in and boarding, and they have to do everything manually.”
She estimated staff were checking in people at the rate of about one person every 10 minutes, adding: “I’m not exaggerating. It was just insane, the queue wasn’t moving.
“And then suddenly they said, ‘Oh, the flight will be departing, we’re closing the gate’.
“So they checked-in like 20 people, maybe like the business class, and then told the people from the 6.30 flight to just go away, that they need to start checking in for the 8.40 flight.”
Ms Pultarova was due to visit the Square Kilometre Array telescopes in the Karoo Desert for work, adding she had been looking forward to the trip for months.
She said: “I need to be there at 7am tomorrow, otherwise the party will leave for the Karoo Desert where the telescopes are.
“So yeah, you know, I need to have information, but nobody’s giving me any information, so I don’t know what to do.”
Ms Pultarova was eventually told she could get on the 3.30pm flight – which means she will miss her connection flight in Amsterdam.
She said: “I’m a freelance journalist, so it’s causing me loss of income. I’ve been really kind of excited about this trip.”
