Two points from the original, admirably restrained post.
I am still awaiting a satisfactory explanation from their Customer Care department
I wouldn't bother waiting. If you get one it will the the first in history. Move straight to taking legal action in the Small Claims court for all monies you believe they owe you, including refunds, and damages.
I totally understand that sometimes it is necessary to offload passengers
You are much too understanding. If, having
booked, checked in and
boarded passengers on a short-haul sector, an airline
then finds it necessary to offload
15 for "payload reasons", someone somewhere has made a stupid, incompetent, unacceptable, gross error. Whoever it was should be sacked forthwith.
If someone cares to post, from certain knowledge, why it happened we could reconsider. But I can think of almost nothing that could cause the allowable take-off weight to be reduced by 1.5 Tonnes between boarding and closing the doors. Sudden change to a short runway, maybe? Somehow I doubt it. Some problem with the landing weight, again notified to the crew between boarding and closing the doors? Unlikely.
Too much fuel on board? Maybe, but that could, should have been picked up much sooner. Captain 's last-minute decision to load 1.5 Tonnes extra? Possible, but not after boarding, surely?
The error, if it was one, was obviously captured before it was capable of causing a crash, probably by the flight crew just before the doors were closed. Had the aircraft taken off with 1500 Kgs (ie 15 passengers at normal weights) too much that, especially with another problem (engine fire at V1, say) would have created a highly dangerous situation.
KLM should be on its hands and knees begging not to have its operating permit pulled after that little beauty of a cock-up, as well as appeasing rightly disgruntled passengers with swift, friendly responses and lots of money to keep the incident under the Press radar and away from the Regulator's attention.
Was an MOR submitted? Hmmm, I doubt it. KLM employees know better.
Those who would ignore KLM's dreadful attitude to its customers, and continue to use them, should bear in mind that KLM is The Netherlands CAA's biggest "client" by far, and that civil servants tend not to rock the boat.
If the flight was operated by KLM UK the Netherlands CAA is out of the picture. But you would wait a long time for the UK CAA to take a pro-active interest in a safety-related gross error, just so long as the right procedures were documented.