This is an update to the original documented case. New here? The short version: on 7 April 2026 I was denied boarding on Kenya Airways flight KQ117 from Amsterdam to Nairobi. On my wedding day. On the way to my father-in-law’s funeral.
The day itself
On the morning of 7 April I got married. That evening I stood at gate E03 at Schiphol with my wife, about to fly to Kenya for her father’s funeral, which would be held the next morning.
There was an error in my Kenyan travel authorisation. Not my error: the Kenyan immigration authority had made it, and it was corrected while I stood at the gate. The correction landed on my phone at 20:08. The gate closing time printed on my boarding pass: 20:15. I showed the correction to the gate staff straight away. They saw it and asked the flight manager to let me board. He refused. My luggage had already been taken off the aircraft at the very start of boarding, before anyone could know how this would end. The plane left, late, without me.
My wife flew to her father’s funeral alone, on our wedding night. When I finally arrived, a day later and EUR 492.03 poorer for a replacement ticket, the funeral was already underway.
What EU law says
EU Regulation 261/2004 is clear: a passenger who holds valid documents before gate closure and is refused anyway is owed EUR 600 in compensation on this route, plus damages. That is what I have been asking for since April. Not a gesture, not goodwill. The legal minimum.
Trying to reach an airline that does not want to be reached
The first article documented what happened when I tried to claim: published contact addresses that turn out to be “no longer monitored”, a reimbursement form that rejects a valid ticket number, executive inboxes that redirect to each other, and months of complete silence. It took a formal complaint to the Dutch enforcement authority ILT (reference M-2026-0741068) and letters to a long list of addresses Kenya Airways nowhere publishes before anyone answered at all.
Then, suddenly: three rejections in eight days
20 August. The first substantive reply since May. Rejected: travel documentation is the passenger’s responsibility. No mention of the fact that the error was made by the Kenyan immigration authority and corrected before gate closure. I replied the same day with a final notice: payment by 3 September.
25 August. After a self-announced “further review with the Amsterdam team”: a formal letter, rejection number two. It introduces a brand-new claim, appearing for the first time four and a half months after the event: that I “did not return to the boarding point” after my authorisation was corrected. This is the opposite of what happened. I was at the gate, I showed the corrected authorisation at 20:08, and it was their own gate agents who asked the flight manager to board me. The letter’s own enclosure undermines its conclusion: the attached boarding pass states boarding 19:35, gate closing 20:15.
28 August, morning. My written rebuttal, point by point, with the evidence attached. I invited Kenya Airways to disclose the “records” their new account rests on. Under Dutch law the claim now stands at EUR 1,715.83 plus statutory interest.
28 August, evening. Rejection number three, hours later. One paragraph: they are “satisfied that the assessment previously communicated remains appropriate”. No records disclosed. Not one point of evidence addressed.
Three versions of events
Follow the sequence. First: months of silence. Then: “documentation is the passenger’s responsibility”. Then: “flight closure had already been completed”. Then: “you did not return to the boarding point”. Each new version arrived only after the previous one had been refuted with documents, and the last version is contradicted by the boarding pass Kenya Airways itself enclosed. The facts of 7 April have never changed. Only the story has.
The deadline has expired
3 September came and went. No payment, no settlement proposal, no disclosure of the records I asked for.
Where this goes next
The claim of EUR 1,715.83 plus statutory interest stands, and every avenue to enforce it is being prepared. The file of the Dutch enforcement authority ILT (M-2026-0741068) has been updated with Kenya Airways’ final position.
Why I keep going
Because the process I am documenting here is designed to make people give up. Every dead-end address, every month of silence, every new version of events adds friction, and friction is what makes passengers walk away from money they are legally owed. For us this is a lot of money, and it happened at the worst possible moment of our lives.
If you can help in any way, please reach out. And even if you can’t: reading and sharing this already helps. Attention is exactly what processes like this are designed to outlast. I will keep this page updated, through to the outcome.
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