I called up Emirates call centre requesting change in seating and meal preference. After keeping me waiting for 10 minutes the call centre attendant replied saying system is too slow and therefore i cannot help you!! What non-sense..the website is not working, call centre employee takes too much time to understand and respond to service request and this at the time when Emirates is 40% costlier than counterparts like Air Arabia (which is very quick in such requests!)

I had a confirmed Emirates excursion ticket (Dxb-Fra-Dxb), booking reference: IP2HTF.

On 3 Feb 2011, I arrived at the Emirates check in queue at Dubai International airport, terminal 3 at 1200h. After waiting in line & meeting with the person at the counter, I was redirected to counter B57, where I met with Mr. Ahmed. Mr. Ahmed asked me to wait as he believed that the flight was overbooked & I would not be allowed to board the flight. An argument followed wherein I insisted that I needed to board the flight. I also informed Mr. Ahmed that I had not eaten & was thirsty and intended to have lunch after entering the airport. All the while I was not offered even a sip of water, inspite of requesting Mr. Ahmed.

After waiting for over an hour, I called the Emirates Contact Centre on 04-2144444 at 1305h & spoke with another Mr. Ahmed. After explaining my plight, I handed over my mobile phone so that the two Ahmeds could speak with each other & assist me. Thereafter, although I was promised that they would put me on the flight in ‘a few minutes’, it didn’t happen. It was only at 1345h that I was redirected to yet another counter when my boarding pass was finally issued. Consequently, I didn’t have the time to have a meal.

I wrote to Emirates complaining about this appalling experience. Their threat to offload me & the ensuing behavior, was preposterous, to say the least. I categorically asked them to address the following questions:

1. Why was I threatened to be bumped off the flight, considering I was a full fare paying passenger with a confirmed seat. Additionally, I had also arrived in good time at the check in counter, at the airport.

2. Does Emirates not believe in arranging for even drinking water, considering you have been the cause for holding back a passenger?


Repeated reminders to [email protected] finally resulted in a baseless, erroneous & superfluous response, some of which can be found in the email chain below. Not once, has anyone from Emirates Airlines bothered to phone me.


Note: Forward Message Attached From: "Nikeel Idnani" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:56:46 +0400
To: "Customer Affairs"<[email protected]>,
Cc:
Subject: Re: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020


Dear Mr. Advani:

You email is at best - baseless, erroneous & falls well short of my expectation. Please allow me to elaborate.

1. My initial email to [email protected] was dated 12 Feb 2011. This was followed by 4 reminders on 16 Feb 2011, 29 March 2011, 9 April 2011 & 12 April 2011.

2. It is not my problem with what ‘most airlines’ including Emirates do to ensure their commercial success, by overbooking flights. As a full fare paying passenger, Emirates has no right to bump me off my confirmed flight.

3. You claim “...every effort is made to minimise discomfort to our passengers by looking after their welfare...” If you read carefully my complaint, you will note my experience of - being shuttled from one Emirates check-in counter to another, I was made to wait endlessly while not even being offered a sip of water, this in spite of requesting the check-in staff viz. - Mr. Ahmed. In my opinion, this is far from “looking after the passengers’ welfare”.

4. You go onto claim – “…..and even ensuring that they get transferred onto the first available airline, if necessary, to take them to their destination." The only ‘ensuring’ was my insistence on boarding my flight. The Emirates staff tried their level best to ‘ensure’ I accept being bumped off.


I am tired of this to & fro communication which appears to serve no useful purpose for me. I will be approaching the press with my grievances against Emirates.


----- Original Message -----
From: Customer Affairs
To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:09:34 +0400
Subject: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020

Resent

Our Ref No: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020

09 March 2011

Dear Mr Idnani,

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to detail your concerns in your e-mail message of 16 February 2011 and for your patience whilst I looked into the events you have described.

I regret to learn of the difficulties you experienced due to an overbooking situation on flight EK047 to Frankfurt, on 03 February.

As you may be aware, on most major airlines, a proportion of passengers who have booked seats do not present themselves for the flight and do not telephone to cancel these unwanted seats. These passengers are known as “no-shows”. In order to minimise the effect of no-shows and to enable their seats to be used by passengers who otherwise will not be able to travel on their chosen flight, airlines may overbook flights.

By careful monitoring and control, we try our utmost to match the number of available seats with the number of passengers that we expect will appear for the flight. There are the odd occasions when the figures do not match. However, when this happens, every effort is made to minimise discomfort to our passengers by looking after their welfare and even ensuring that they get transferred onto the first available airline, if necessary, to take them to their destination.

On retrieving the check-in history, I am pleased to note that our ground staff in Dubai were able to accept you for travel on your original scheduled flight.

As a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice or admission of liability, I am enclosing a Duty Free Voucher for you with the original of this letter valued at US$35.00. This voucher may be used on board Emirates flights or at Dubai Airport Duty Free and is valid for one year from the date of issue.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to write to us and for the benefit of your feedback. Although we have not lived up to your expectations on this occasion, I do hope your recent experience has not marred your impression of the service offered by Emirates and that we will be given another opportunity of serving you in the future.

Yours sincerely,
Nicky Advani
Customer Affairs

Encl.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nikeel Idnani [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 9:29 PM
To: Customer Affairs
Subject: Final Reminder: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020


To Customer Affairs.
This is a final reminder regarding my case. I have read with keen interest the experience of 4 unfortunate Emirates passengers in today's Gulf News. A failure to receive a response from you will force me to write to the press highlighting my plight as well.

I look forward to the courtesy of an immediate response.
Regards,
--------------------------------------------
Nikeel Idnani


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nikeel Idnani"
To: <[email protected]>
Cc:
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:48:54 +0400
Subject: Reminder: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020

Friendly reminder.


--------------------------------------------
Nikeel Idnani

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nikeel Idnani"
To: <[email protected]>
Cc:
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:57:56 +0400
Subject: Re: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020

To Customer Affairs.

While I appreciate your follow-up email dated 6 March, please take note that my complaint was dated 12 Feb 2011.

I most certainly look forward to your feedback.

Sincerely,

--------------------------------------------
Nikeel Idnani


----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:20:42 +0400
Subject: DXB/X/NO/200211/6736020


Dear Mr Idnani,

I refer to our acknowledgement of 20 February 2011.

Our investigation is ongoing. Please be rest assured that the points you have raised are receiving
our full attention and we hope to be in a position to write to you shortly.

Thank you for bearing with us.

Yours sincerely,

Customer Affairs
Emirates Group Headquarters

We had travelled to India from SFO via Dubai on Dec 10th2010 and our return journey was scheduled for Jan 1st’2011 from Delhi.
We had already checked in Online, receipt can be send to appropriate address. The flight time was originally at 4.15 am and was delayed to leave at 5:00 am. I had checked and confirmed the revised time repeatedly by calling the Mumbai Help Desk number. We reached the airport at 3:00 am and found that the check-in counter has been closed. There were three officials at the counter and they refused to help us.
On repeated requests, one of them reluctantly called the gate (after 20 min) and informed us that we cannot board the flight.
There was no courtesy extended to us and no alternative offered to us. Again, after repeated requests, one of the officials, called the Emirates Reservation from my personal phone and after 25 minutes, had us talking to the Reservation specialist.
We are offered following choices:
- Pay “no show” penalty
- We can go to Dubai on Jan 2nd and wait for another flight to SFO from Dubai for 5 days.
- We can stay in Delhi for 15 days, as only one flight had open seats available but not for next 15 days.
- We need to pay $200 per ticket to get any of the above two options
We requested the Emirates staff to assist us with any partnering airlines and were told, that there is no tie up with any other airline.
We had two young girls with us and their Schools were opening on Jan 3rd and it was really important and urgent for us to reach home on Jan 1st or 2nd at the most.
We had no other option but to buy tickets on the counter from Singapore airlines, that also business class which costed us a fortune. And then we also had to stay in Singapore for one night for which again we had to pay from our own pocket.
We are totally disappointed with the attitude of Emirates staff at the Delhi Airport and the Staff on phone for reservations. They were totally non-professional, rude and not at all helpful.
We had always held Emirates in a high esteem, but after that experience not any more.
I am filing this complaint in your Complaint box and would like to be compensated for all the expenses that I had to incur for the mistake on Airlines staff.

I had sent this as email to them two times already and faxed them the papers. Have not recd any response so far.

With reference to the above subject, I would appreciate on behalf of my boss to retain the seats as it is on the e-ticket that we received. Kindly follow me on reference EK / HKU6XB. On the e-ticket issued to us on 6th March 2011 and a revalidated ticket on 27th March, we are confirmed on the following seats:
Doha – Dubai / EK 0846 / seat 02A
Dubai – Mauritius / EK 3703 / seat 02K
Mauritius – Dubai / EK 702 / seat 02A
As per conversation with Emirates in Doha and even main office in Dubai, there had been an aircraft version change that caused changes on the seats and the only thing to do is to request it on the check – in counter but still the option given is not 100% guaranteed.

Kindly do something as we are trusting on any confirmation from you. You confirmed these seats and changed it without notice to the travel agency or to the passenger. Mr. Shokry is a frequent and loyal passenger of Emirates Airlines and we are looking forward that you will grant our request.

Hi There I would like to know if you could help me, we are a group of 70 people that booked emirates flight from Johannesburg to Dubai, Dubai to Jeddah and return the same way. On our return we have a transit of 10hour and 5 minutes. I did contact our local emirates office regarding a free hotel because of such a long transit but they cannot give us a free hotel because we did a group booking. How unfair people who booked on their own can get but we cannot. I hope that you can sort this out as soon as possible because my flight is on this Wednesday at 14h10 and I will be leaving for the airport by 8am. Booking reference: FYTRTB Thanks a lot