Hi, I have just returned back from my trip to London on Emirates, I am not surprised to read about all the complaints this World Class Carrier is attracting!
For me, I have a few complaints as follows:
1) I checked in online at Emirates branch office in Abu Dhabi, about 5-6 hrs before my flight EK 005 from Dubai on Wednesday 30th July. my first "gripe" is that they have a facility for check-in, which then requires you to print the confirmation of your checking-in. This very large facility unfortunately do not provide a printer for printing such a document!!
2) Although when I checked -in, the confirmation was processed along with an option to change your allocated seating. On seeing that the seat was shown as being directly next to one of the exit points, i accepted it, as it provided a lot of leg room. My problem came when on boarding the plane, I was asked to sit in the row behind the seat next to the exit point. Obviously the layout of the plane they use while checking-in is not to be trusted!!.
3) My wife and 5 kids had already flown with Emirates about 2 weeks ago and they had a problem that the "kids meal" she requested when booking her flight were not arranged!!
4) On arriving in London, my wife requested a change of return date for my eldest daughter, she was told on the phone that this was done - no complaint!! But a week later when my wife in London requested that I (father) be seated next to my 4 kids on the return journey which we had on the same flight, she was surprised to hear that all of the kids flights had been changed as per my eldest daughter's flight - complaint!!
5) On the flight back with my kids on 3 August via EK 033 from London, the air crew were extremely uncaring and completely robotic in their dealings with the passengers. At one time though, after being delayed nearly 1 hour due to a passenger not showing up at boarding time, one of the HOSTESS's a chinese lady while following procedures to identify all hand luggage, broke out in a rant and rave that no one was claiming a bag which had been stowed away!
6) After boarding the plane and sitting for over one hour, my youngest (9 year old ) daughter was feeling very hungry, I told her to go to the galley and ask for some snacks. She went back and spoke to some staff who sent her back that food will be served soon ( we had not even taken off at this time!) After almost 45 minutes after we took, my girl again said she was feeling hungry, I asked her to stop the "LADY" and ask her again, again the answer was we are about to serve food soon. 10 minutes later, the drinks tolley was wheeled to the front and after half an hour had still not reached us at the back of the plane! On seeing that my daughter was so hungry, I went to the galley behind our seats where the crew were chatting away and asked for a snack for my daughter who had asked for the same over one and half hours ago. One air steward responded that the food will be served soon, when I told her that we have been told this for so long!! then replied "well does she want dinner or not?" I replied that yes but in the mean time, pls give her a snack ( I was very annolyed by this time!!). He then handed me two (small) packets of salty biscuits!!.
7) Eventually the food was served to us, only to be told that although the menu had two options for the main course, unfortuanately only on option was now available!! ( what was the point of providing menus??)

Anyway, this complaints list may grow further since, my wife and daughter are yet to travel back to Dubai (on separate flights) and lets see what happens then...

S.K. Hassan


8) During the course of the flight, I saw a stewardess (accidentally) slap a small girl ( maybe 10 years old) in the face and she merely said "sorry" and then carried on with her work! Then at one, time as I was sitting in an aisle seat, one of the stewardesses ( same Chinese looking lady) jabbed me with a food tray on her way past.