Upon reading an email from KLM this morning asking me, ‘What does travelling well look like to you?’, I was triggered.

Not because I dislike KLM. Quite the opposite.

I have, for years, considered KLM—Royal Dutch Airlines—one of the carriers I genuinely rate highly. I am not what you would call a ‘fan.’ If I have a choice, my Gulf darlings—Emirates and Qatar Airways—will usually win my heart.

But on the occasions when I have chosen KLM, particularly when travelling onwards into Europe, I have generally had a very good experience.

So when KLM asked me in an email whether travelling well is about ‘making lasting memories, creating meaningful connections, and having enriching experiences,’ I could not help but think about my own experience travelling through Schiphol.

And I thought: is this really what KLM means by travelling well?

Because my experience at KLM’s European hub left me feeling anything but welcome.

Choosing KLM

Was choosing KLM a mistake? Last year, I travelled to the Schengen area twice within a relatively short period. The first trip was in early October, followed by another later that same month, with the second trip ending with my return home in the first or second week of November.

These were not holidays in the conventional sense. I was travelling for work and assignments, and on both occasions, I was ultimately travelling onwards to other Schengen countries.

I am also very conscious of the resources I have at my disposal.

I come from a community where the resources available to an individual are not something one takes for granted. I often remind myself that the opportunities I have had in life were not created by me alone. I was taken to school because ordinary villagers contributed, in one way or another, to making that possible.

So, when I travel, I am conscious of costs.

That is why, when I had to make these two trips to Europe, I thought a direct European route through KLM would make sense. It would save time and potentially money, compared with routing through the Gulf.

I therefore booked KLM. And, in retrospect, that was my mistake.

Passport in limbo

I am not new to international travel. Perhaps that is another reason this experience stayed with me so deeply. The work I do has taken me to different parts of the world.

I have travelled extensively across the African continent, Europe, South America, East Asia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia and China, including through JFK and other major American airports. I have travelled through most of the Schengen countries, as well as several parts of India and many other countries across the world.

I have encountered different immigration systems, different border-control procedures and different attitudes towards travellers. I understand that airports have security requirements. I understand that immigration officers ask questions.

I understand that countries have a legitimate right—and responsibility—to establish who enters their territory and for what purpose.

I am not naïve about international travel.

Of course, in all those years of travelling, I have had a few incidents where my passport was taken away and carried into a back office for further checks. This happened in Russia, for example. But I did not expect this from a progressive, human-rights-minded nation like the Netherlands.

And I remember how that made me feel. I was worried sick. Not because I had done anything wrong.

I had nothing to hide. But when someone takes your passport away and disappears behind a door, your mind begins to race.

What are they checking? What have they found? Are they going to put something in my passport?

Will there be some comment recorded against my name? Will this affect my ability to travel here again? Am I going to miss my connecting flight?

These are not insignificant thoughts when you are standing in a foreign airport, your passport—your most important travel document—no longer in your possession, and nobody seems particularly interested in explaining what is happening.

And remember, I was travelling legally. I had a valid Schengen visa. I had a clear itinerary.

I had accommodation arrangements. I had a return ticket. I had the financial means to support myself.

Yet, somehow, I found myself in a situation where I felt compelled to prove that I was not the person they appeared to suspect I might be. That distinction is important.

My complaint is not about being questioned. My complaint is about the experience of being made to feel that I was inherently suspicious. And perhaps my extensive travel history is precisely why the Schiphol experience affected me so much.

I have seen different sides of the world. But I had never experienced quite this combination of questioning, scrutiny, uncertainty and—most importantly—the feeling that my African passport had placed me in a different category of traveller.

I remember arriving at Schiphol and being genuinely shocked by what followed. Upon reaching passport control, I felt as though I had suddenly become a suspect.

How long will you stay in Europe? Why are you coming to Europe? Which countries are you visiting?

Which cities? Where will you stay? Which hotels?

Who is paying for your trip? How much money will you spend? What work do you do back home?

The questions kept coming. Now, before anyone accuses me of misunderstanding the role of immigration officers, let me be clear. I understand that border authorities have a legitimate responsibility to establish whether a person meets the conditions for entry.

That is not my complaint. My complaint is about how the process felt, how it was conducted and, ultimately, how I was made to feel as an African traveller. The difference matters.

There was another element that made the whole experience particularly frustrating. I was not travelling to the Netherlands to stay there. I was transiting through Schiphol to another Schengen country.

That connection still required entry checks at Schiphol, even though the Netherlands was not my final destination. Yet here I was, at the Dutch border, being asked to account for practically every detail of my European journey.

And perhaps that is precisely where my frustration with KLM begins. Because KLM had sold me a journey. Not merely a seat from Dar es Salaam to Amsterdam—a journey.

KLM chooses Schiphol as its hub. KLM chooses to build its European network around that airport. KLM tells customers that travelling well means creating meaningful experiences and seeing the world in a new way.

So, yes, Dutch immigration officers are not KLM employees. But KLM’s hub is part of KLM’s travel ecosystem.

If I fly Emirates through Dubai, I experience the journey through Dubai. If I fly Qatar Airways through Doha, I experience the journey through Doha. The airport is part of the journey.

The transit experience is part of the journey. The treatment of passengers at the hub becomes part of how passengers remember the airline. That is simply how travel works.

The second trip was worse. If the first experience was uncomfortable, the second was significantly worse. By then I was psychologically prepared.

I knew what I might encounter. I had my documents ready. I had my accommodation information.

I knew where I was going. I knew where I would be staying. I knew how I was financing my trip.

I thought: fine, I have been through this before. This time I am prepared. I wasn’t.

The officer handling me was considerably younger than me—perhaps in his mid-twenties. One of his concerns appeared to be that I was returning to Europe again so soon after my previous trip.

Why was I coming back? Was I genuinely travelling for the reasons I had stated? Was I booked into all the places where I said I would sleep?

Did I have enough money to support myself throughout my stay?

The officer wanted evidence that my debit or credit card—or the bank account associated with it—contained enough funds to support me during my stay. There was something almost absurd about the exercise. A bank card does not necessarily display the bank account number attached to it.

Yet I found myself having to explain and demonstrate my financial circumstances anyway.

Eventually, I was asked to provide access to my bank account. And this is where the whole experience became surreal. Meanwhile, my connecting flight was getting closer and closer.

I was no longer even properly in the queue. I was somewhere off to the side, watching time disappear. I kept trying to explain to different officers that I had a KLM-linked connecting flight to catch.

Could someone please help? Could someone expedite whatever checks were being conducted? Could someone at least tell me what was happening?

There was no meaningful assistance.

Eventually, the officer returned. And after seeing how much money was actually available to me, the questioning took another turn.

What business do you do to have access to this amount of money?

Again: more questions, more explanations, more justification.

And I want to be very clear here. There was nothing wrong with the questions themselves. If an immigration officer has concerns about a traveller’s financial circumstances, I understand why they might ask.

What disturbed me was the underlying assumption. It was the feeling that I had already been categorised. And the category I felt I had been placed in was not ‘traveller.’

It was ‘potential illegal migrant.’ That is what hurts.

This is where my experience became much more than an inconvenience at an airport. I am an African. I am a Tanzanian.

I have spent much of my professional life working on human rights, children’s rights and social justice. I have also spent years thinking about migration, vulnerability and the circumstances that push Africans to make extraordinarily dangerous journeys in search of safety or opportunity.

I have seen—and worked around—stories of African brothers, sisters and children who risk their lives trying to reach Europe. People crossing deserts. People crossing seas.

People hiding in trucks. People paying smugglers. People dying along the way.

People arriving in Europe with nothing.

And there I was. A Tanzanian professional who had legally applied for a visa, paid the required visa fees and purchased an airline ticket through a recognised international airline to travel onwards to another Schengen country.

One thing that made the experience even more difficult was watching other travellers pass through. I remember seeing American and other Western passport holders walking through the airport seemingly as though they were already in a holiday park.

Perhaps they were subjected to checks I did not see. Perhaps they had questions asked elsewhere. Perhaps I am seeing the situation through the lens of my own experience.

But that is precisely the point. My experience left me feeling that my African passport had already made me suspicious. And that feeling stays with you.

It changes how you see the airport. It changes how you see the country. And, unfortunately, it changes how you see the airline that brought you there.

KLM cannot simply say, ‘That isn’t our responsibility.’ I can already imagine the response. Schiphol passport control is the responsibility of the Dutch authorities, not KLM.

That responsibility is clear. But I would challenge KLM to think beyond technical responsibility. When I purchase a KLM ticket from Dar es Salaam to another destination in Europe, I am not buying an aircraft seat in isolation.

I am buying a travel experience.

KLM tells customers that travelling well means creating meaningful experiences and seeing the world in a new way. So, yes, Dutch immigration officers are not KLM employees. But KLM’s hub is part of KLM’s travel ecosystem.

The airport is part of the journey. The transit experience is part of the journey. The treatment of passengers at the hub becomes part of how passengers remember the airline.

So imagine my reaction this morning when KLM asked: ‘What does travelling well look like to you?’ KLM says travelling well is about ‘making lasting memories, creating meaningful connections, and having enriching experiences.’ It asks travellers to explore the world with ‘fresh eyes, intentionally and qualitatively.’

I have to admit, the email triggered something in me. Because I remembered Schiphol.

My message to KLM’s management: I have had an extremely special relationship with the Netherlands through the Dutch people I have met over the years. I have Dutch friends whom I respect enormously. I have worked with Dutch organisations and people whose commitment to human rights, equality and social justice I deeply admire.

That is why this experience was particularly painful. I would therefore say this to KLM: please do better.

Do better for African travellers. Do better for people who have spent their hard-earned money to travel legally. Do better for people who choose your airline.

Do better for people who arrive at your hub with genuine intentions. And perhaps most importantly, do better at distinguishing legitimate border security from the humiliation of being treated as a presumptive irregular migrant.

Because Africans are travelling. We are working. We are studying.

We are attending conferences. We are visiting friends. We are conducting business.

We are going on holiday. We are contributing to international organisations.

Kiiya Joel Kiiya is the founder of C-Sema, a non-profit organisation in Tanzania that works to advance children’s rights. He works with communities across the Global South—for every child. He can be reached at kiiya.jk@sematanzania.org. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.