I would like to express my greatest dissapointment in the poor service received on my first flight with Emirates.

I had such great expectations after so many people had told me how great flying with Emirates was and how good the service is.

We were on flight 010 travelling from London Gatwick to Dubai, connecting in Dubai on Flight 770 to Cape Town on the 24/12/10.

My husband and I reside in the UK but are from South Africa and Kosovo respectively. My husband has a valid passport and a valid SA vistors visa.

We arrived at Gatwick just after 5.00pm and proceeded to the check-in. The check-in lady was unable to key in the short country code for Kosovo even though you had the country listed in your drop down box when I checked in on-line. The passport was passed over to your flight section and for the next hour the check-in staff and supervisors tried numerous ways of getting the code into the system in order to print out my husband boarding pass. After a hour of trying to do this, they printed out his boarding pass from London to Dubai and took a copy of his passport and visa for South Africa and said to us that the boarding pass for Dubai to Capetown would be waiting at the departure gate. They said the problem was not ours but that your systems could not accommadate the country code for Kosovo.

When we got to the departure gate, there was no onward boarding pass waiting. They then stated that they had faxed a copy of the passport and visa to Dubai and since Dubai had seven hours, it would be no problem and we could collect it from the ticket office in Dubai. I then asked if it would definitely be there as we had a short transfer time of 1hr and 50 minutes. They stated it would be there and that the office in Dubai were aware of the situation.

We touched down in Dubai and cleared security, which left about 50 minutes to catch our connecting flight. We proceeded to the ticket section, had to clear security for a second time and explained the situation.They of course knew nothing about the boarding pass or the situation and said no fax had been received. The ticket office then spent another 30 minutes trying to print off the boarding pass with no sense of urgency that we needed to get this connecting flight. I explained that I had family from all over the world waiting for us in Cape Town.We were asked to wait, I then approached the counter for a second time and queued, at this point we had about ten minutes to get the boarding pass and get across Dubai Airport. Finally after another five minutes they printed the pass and my husband and I proceeded to run across Dubai Airport- clearing security for the third time and arrived at the departure gate. They then took my husband passport and told us we could not yet board the flight yet and that the plane would not leave without us. I was furious at this point, never in all my years of flying had I ever see such a lack of communication between departments of the same company- You would have thought that after all we had been through that the ticket office could have called the departing gate to let them know the situation, so for the third time I had to explain the whole thing again. I also asked them for a complaints form and was passed a customer service form, which I will complete with the same email.

The plane departure time passed and at this point they gentleman at the departure explained that they were now contacting South Africa to verify that my husband could travel to South Africa (even though he had a previous stamped South Africa Vistors Visa in the same passport from 2007).
He also explained that the reason was that Emirates would be fined if he could not get into the country. I explained he had travelled to South Africa twice before this with British Airways and we had none of these problems.

We finally made the flight, which was now delayed for a further 50 minutes due to this matter. I have travelled all over the world and have never felt the descrimation we endured, dealing with your departments both in the UK and Dubai.

I would like to receive a response to this complaint and I will be posting this on every travel advisory site, to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

We are due to fly back with Emirates on the 12/01/10 and I certainly hope that we do not encounter a similar experience.

On the way to Dubai the food was so terrible.
Considering we had to cheek in 4 hrs before the flight and the flight is usually en anything because 2:00 in the afternoon we have not ate anything because breakfast and lunch before 10:00.
The Heathrow airport stopped the junk food bar so we had coke and crisp for lunch in the airport from our sidebag.
Then 4 hrs later was our departure to Dhaka and they served our dinner 8 hrs after cheek in.
What they gave did not fill us up after 3 hrs of flight in the air they dicided to give us some food which was few fried potatoes 2 tiny dices of chicken and some cake which was full of icing and a rock hard bun that you can brake your teeth with:(.
anyway, I am a 10 yr old average size for a 10 yr old and my proper wheelchair is in the luggage hold and while I am in DXB I have to use a Airport Wheelchair Which Could Fill Me my sister and my brother and also my parents so it was a very large wheelchair which will not specify my needs. It was really large and old and destroys my image:).
Not only did I have To Face The embarrassment of this narsy rusty wheelchair I was also remove form my family through out the connection flight time which was 3 hrs in total and I am 10 yrs old my mum promised we will never fly Emirates Again.
In December we travelled With Jet Airways and it was great.
They need to consider people and their needs and not only old or oversized people that travel you know.
I hope you consider my information and never fly emirates again.

Myself and collegues from a top UK university booked to fly to Dubai and connect onwards to Kenya using the online system and all seemed well. The money showed as been taken from my account and i recieved my e-tickets just fine.

Then...

My bank account showed the money had been sent BACK to my account! I called my bank who confirmed that Emirates had been sent the authorisation code needed but had not accepted it and as such the money was returned.

Then it gets silly...

I naturally good heartedly called Emirates from the telephone number supplied as a UK number from the website and explained to a pleasant woman the situation. She confirmed our flights were 100% booked and confirmed and they wouldnt be cancelled and the money HAD been taken which is why i had the e-tickets. I called my bank to find out what they were playing at and find out where the money had come from and the INSISTED Emirates had NOT taken any money!

So i called Emirates again and was hung up on instantly... and then called again and spoke to a nice lady who said the finance department needed to look into it and to call back in 30 mins to confirm payment had been taken... she even asked for my card number again which naturally i gave thinking nothing of it as i figured i had paid by card and she would need to search some database to confirm payment? Silly me?

30 mins later as requested i called back... a gent spoke who clearly didn't understand English and he hung up on me! (By now i was starting to worry). So... i called AGAIN and spoke to ANOTHER gentleman who AGAIN hardly understood English and he simply kept telling me to call back in the morning and lots of terminology that made NO sense before saying the number i had called was in Dubai (even though it is CLEARLY stated on the website as UK!) Obviously considering i have VALID tickets and have not PAID for them you would think emirates would be keen to take payment?! But OH NO... i am DREADING my bill (i was calling from a mobile telephone) and i'm now pretty certain we as a university will take our business elsewhere and an official complaint letter including a request for re-imbursement for the sham telephone number trick will be winging it's way to Emirates.

You would think one of the worlds best airlines would take more care of things and they would need to seriously upgrade our tickets to make us even consider using them again. AWFUL.