Absolutely appalled at the treatment this child received and have made a mental note not to fly KLM anytime soon. However, my automatic assumption, before seeing the details of this thread, was that KLM was a decent airline which looked after it pax. And I know a little about the industry.
I think we can assume that the parents who booked this flight thought the same. But I agree about the transfer thing - it looks fine on paper but if things go wrong you can end up with a real problem.
It isn't fair though to blame these or indeed any parents for a child flying unmin - there are a whole bunch of reasons why kids fly alone and why this service exists. Sometimes it is unavoidable. But the escort service is a paid-for extra service, on top of the ticket price. You pay for something and you expect it to work as advertised.
Very pertinent thread tho' as my offspring will shortly be flying unmin from London to Dubai. No transfers I know but there are only two airlines which I would seriously consider using. And a whole bunch which I wouldn't use in a million years. Some of them for the simple fact that if there was any kind of emergency then I'd like crew with guaranteed excellent spoken English to be able to explain exactly what was going on.
To back up my thoughts, I had the pleasure of meeting a BA CSD the other evening and had the opportunity to ask how it 'worked' on the a/c itself. Very reassured by what I was told and not planning to cancel junior's flight here because of the disgraceful actions of KLM.
In fact, thinking about the possible repercussions of what they did, change 'mental note not to fly KLM anytime soon' to 'I will never willingly fly KLM ever again'. And I suggest everyone here does the same.
CS