horror experience with emirates

[davidgreene]

i write to you in regard to my recent unpleasant experience flying with Emirates airlines.
I booked 5 return flights at the Emirates office in Perth for myself, my partner and my 3 children to fly to Paris via Dubai with Emirates. I had a connecting flight from Paris to Dublin with Aer Lingus. This was supposed to be our big family vacation, an occasion which was supposed to be a holiday of a life time for all concerned, a first ever visit for my children to visit their family in Ireland, to attend my brother’s wedding and my nephew’s christening.
The 5 return tickets to Paris cost over $10,000.
The major complaint I have with this air line is that you lost all our luggage en route to Paris and took 9 days to return our bags, but if only that was the only issue.
Below is a brief overview of our experience with your air line.

3rd July 2008 – Our party of 5 checked in at Emirates desk at Perth International at approx 3 am to avoid the children having to queue. We inform the Emirates employee that we have a connecting flight from Paris to Dublin with Aer Lingus and require our bags to be checked all the way through to Dublin. The emirates desk employee adamantly informs us that it not possible to check our bags through to Dublin as this is a different air line. He insists that we will have to remove our luggage at Paris and take it to the Aer Lingus desk. Shocked by this sudden policy change in international air travel, I argued this with the emirates employee for some time until he finally agrees to refer the matter to his supervisor who promptly instructs him to check the luggage through to Dublin as requested. I don’t know if this problem was caused by arrogance, ignorance or laziness on the part of the check in employee.

3rd July 2008 – On arrival at Dublin airport, we went to baggage claim to pick up our bags, to our horror none of our bags had arrived. We immediately informed Aer Lingus lost baggage counter at Dublin airport, they took our details and issued us with a lost baggage claim reference, . We can accept that sometimes a bag can be mislaid but when all our luggage is mislaid, that cannot be explained as purely accidental

4th July – 9th July – we contact Emirates office in London, they advise that they cannot assist with locating our luggage. We contact Emirates office in Paris, they are extremely difficult and unhelpful, they disclaim any responsibility and inform us that this is an Aer Lingus problem as they are the final carrier, we inform Emirates Paris that Aer Lingus didn’t lose our luggage but Emirates Paris are completely disinterested. We contact Emirates in Dubai but again we get a similar response as we got from Emirates Paris. Meanwhile we are in daily contact with Aer Lingus lost baggage office in Dublin, Aer Lingus staff were most helpful, they returned our calls as promised and were in regular contact with Emirates staff at both Paris and Dubai. Meanwhile from 3rd July to 10th July my partner, my 3 children and I were left without any clothing or personal belongings. Amongst items in our lost luggage that caused most distress were my daughters’ dresses which were specially made for my brother’s wedding, my children’s dolls which they have had since they were babies, and christening and wedding presents. We were forced to attend my brother’s wedding and my nephew’s christening in substandard replacement clothing and of course did not have the gifts that we purchased. What had been planned to be a joyous family reunion was quickly turning into a nightmare.

9th July – Aer Lingus inform us that 1 of our bags had been located in Paris. The bag is delivered on the 9th July, all tags, luggage ref numbers and my name still on the bag. At this stage we were just glad that our luggage had finally been located but with all original tags, names and numbers still on the bag we’re stunned that it’d taken so long for Emirates to locate the bags.

10th July – Aer Lingus inform us that the 2nd bag had been located in Paris. The bag is delivered on the 10th July, again all tags, luggage ref numbers and my name still on the bag. Why both bags weren’t returned together is a mystery.

24th July – we attempt to check in at Emirates desk in Paris to return home to Perth. The Emirates employee at the check in desk informs us that my 7 year old daughter’s passport is invalid and she cannot travel with us. We were again stunned by this, my daughter’s passport was only issues by the Australian passport office in June ’08, she had travelled from Perth to Dublin, via Dubai and Paris on this passport without any problems and now suddenly her passport is no good. The child is completely distressed and sobbing at the check in counter as the Emirates check-in representative adamantly insists the passport is not valid, I show her the stamps from the previous legs of our “holiday of a lifetime” but to no avail, as far as this Emirates employee was concerned, my daughter was not gong to travel with us. I ask her to get her supervisor, reluctantly she calls someone to review the issue, after some time the supervisor advises that there’s a problem with their computer and all is good with the passport. Does the Emirates check-in rep offer any apology for her adamant refusal to let the 7 year old travel? No chance!
We ask the check-in rep to confirm our vegetarian meals which we ordered in Perth prior to setting off on the start of our journey. Unsurprisingly, there is no record of vegetarian meals being ordered. We ask if vegetarian meals could be arranged, absolutely not she replies, 48 hours notice is required for special meals. I booked the vegetarian meals 6 weeks prior to this but that doesn’t matter apparently.

25th July – we’re on the final leg of our trip home, just happy to be getting off this disaster of a holiday, Emirates cabin crew are serving drinks, my son is sitting on an aisle seat, the stewardess attempts to reach across my son to give a drink to a passenger sitting inside him, she drops the entire glass of drink on his head. Does she offer an apology? Absolutely not! She hands him a couple of serviettes and keeps going. The poor child is left sitting there dripping in orange juice with his chair soaking, I tell him he’s lucky she wasn’t giving the other passenger a cup of coffee or he would have been heading to the burns unit. Finally, just to add some comic relief to this trip from hell, as every one is relaxing, watching a movie or whatever, the stewardess for no apparent reason runs down the aisle from the middle of the plane to the back waving her hands frantically in the air like she’s been chased by a gun wielding terrorist. I look around to see startled passengers darting looks around the cabin in search of the person who had frightened the stewardess so badly to cause her to run like an Olympic sprinter through the plane, fortunately for all concerned, it’s a false alarm, though none of us would have been surprised whatever had happened, such was the catalogue of disasters we encountered with your airline

My question now is what compensation Emirates airlines are prepared to offer my family and I, to in some way make up for the appalling customer service we experienced. I would expect far better from an airline purporting to be a world leader in it’s field. Am I to believe that our experience was a one off isolated incident that doesn’t accurately reflect their standard of customer care and professionalism? I suspect their handling of my complaint will indicate their degree of commitment to customer care and good public relations.

[NYCguy]

Well, I'm shocked!

[QF009]

Welcome to AFF, davidgreene. I am sorry to hear of your unpleasant experience with Emirates.

I was just wondering if you booked your Aer Lingus flight on a seperate ticket to your Emirates flights? You're probably aware that Aer Lingus has morphed itself into a low cost carrier in recent years, and along with this change might no longer be accepting interlined baggage from seperately ticketed flights on other carriers - which might explain the refusal on the part of the C/I agent at PER to check your bags through to DUB, and more importantly - why your bags were stuck at CDG.

Further, Emirates is right in referring you back to Aer Lingus with regard to your lost bags. Sounds silly and in many cases doesn't make a lot of sense, but IATA mandates that the final transporting carrier has the responsibility of sorting out any baggage issues. In Dec 2006 my bag and i flew seperately to WAS - UA had my bag at IAD whilst US flew me to DCA - the joys of IRROPS; UA refused to lift a finger even though they clearly had my bag all along and would know its whereabouts and could organise its transfer with a few key strokes. I was told that US would sort it all out per standard procedure - which they did but with a 48 hr delay as they had difficulties contacting UA to fish out my bag.

As for your complaint to Emirates, I'd suggest being succinct and to the point - leave out the 'comic relief' bit as it's IMO irrelevant to your case.

Good luck.

[vt01]

Your best approach is to write a letter to Emirates explaining what happened. Perhaps even call them to check where you can send your letter.
You may or may not get a satisfactory reply but I've always found a letter is the best approach.

[moa999]

Does sound like totally shocking service and hope that Emirates comes good with some compensation.
Certainly fits with a few other horror Emirates Y stories I have heard, they seem to put all the focus on the front of the bus.


Absolutely amazed that you only had two check-in bags for a party of five.

[drron]

On 4 separate occasions members of my family have travelled Emirates from Australia to CDG.2 in F,1 in J and 1 in Y.On each occasion at least one bag went for a trip of its own.

[Snowmoo]

Hearing this doesn't surprise me at all. We had a horror experience coming back from Dubai last December on Emirates.

I got a chocolate and drink and 5 mins later my wife asks for one from the stewardess and she says no you cannot have them. After pointing out to her that 5 mins earlier I got one, she grumbles to herself and walks off to get it.

They also missed 5 entire rows during the dinner drinks service.

They also got into Syd late which caused me to miss a connecting flight. It took them 3 months to get a letter to me so i could submit the letter to my insurance to pay for compo. They had no idea on how to respond and were always rude and dismissive.

I feel for you and I suggest you throw the book at them as much as possible because for an airline that is meant to pride themself as a premier world airline, they simply are crap.

[Arthur Hodgson]

Well, I'm shocked!

So am I!

We all know that middle eastern airlines (eg Etihad) provide the world's best service.

Buyer beware, I say. I have travelled one sector in business class on Emirates on a round the world C class ticket. It was very ordinary indeed, with surly service from Korean FA's, but I didn't really have any alternative, and I don't think the FF miles ever showed up either.

[docjames]

My parents flew Emirates mid last year MEL-Dubai-milan.

On the outbound, on top of the 8 hr wait in dubai, they decidied that the flight would go via Florence that day (? for no apparent reason!)

On the return flight, dubai-MEL, bearing in mind they were in F, they had two toddlers running up and down the aisle whilst the 2 parents sat in 1A and 1C and did nothing. The thing that annoyed them (apart from the parents) was that the crew seemed to have no idea how to handle the situation. They seemed paralysed by fear that the customers in 1AC would be annoyed to be told to keep their children under control and ? wouldnt fly EK again. Instead, they lost the rest of the F cabin passnegers who ALL asked for complaint forms as they disembarked.

Oh, and it's not like my parents were on a once in a lifetime trip. One is CL, one WP in their own right (as well as CL parter). Needless to say they wont be straying from QF/Oneworld again for a while.

[pfish]

i have mixed feelings about emirates.
I used to fly them about 8 - 10 times per year MEL - DXB (and return) in J or F and, whilst F was fine, i really hated J due to the terrible seats. most flights there would be rude service (esp by male flight attendants for some reason), forgotten orders, and the number of times i have asked a driver in dubai to pull over and get some air to wake up i could not tell you. I also didn't like their ICE system. many channels but mostly cr*p and heavily censored.

but then sometimes they would surprise me and i would have almost the perfect flight (needless to say in F) with great service, endless champagne/wine and a driver in dubai that was actually awake at the wheel.
haven't flown them since april 2007 however..