08/07/2017
I have been a world traveler for over 30 years and this has by far got to be the worst airline I have ever dealt with in all that time.
We transferred in Abu Dhabi to come to Mumbai, India and then we were supposed to transfer to a local flight to Goa, India. We were delayed in Abu Dhabi for over 5 hours making us late to Mumbai over 5 hours which in turn made us miss our connecting flight. (In Abu Dhabi they didn't give a food voucher or anything and didn't give any information until asked why we were delayed. I was told not to worry about my connecting flight in Mumbai (I found out later that would not be the case))
While their staff in Mumbai was helping other clients with hotel rooms for the night until they could get booked on another flight, giving lounge time and rebooking and paying for other passengers who missed their connecting flight we were treated differently because "our transfer was not through Etihad on our booking". Instead of telling us that in the beginning which I do not think should make a difference the person "in charge" a Mr. (And I use that term loosely) Khan told us to wait in a hallway and then he disappeared to never come back to let us know our fate. I was with my wife and three children.
Now the first part of this was that immigration in India gave us a hard time because our flight was so late that they couldn't locate the flight to mark us through. Second, is having 3 children under 10 years old sitting in a hallway at 3 AM. Third, they didn't offer any food or drinks while we sat for an extra 5 hours in Abu Dhabi. Fourth, when I finally located this person again he basically told me to "(To F*** off and go away!!!!". He said this in front of my wife and children and talked to me as if I was a dog in the street that no-one wanted around. Is this how you treat someone who pays thousands of dollars to fly on your airline? Well thats how we were treated. Fifth, I wrote to Etihad a month ago about this and they still have not responded to this disgraceful and unprofessional behavior. Sixth, because we missed our connecting flight I had to rebook and pay an extra $600.00 for a one way which was more than the original round trip for my connecting flight. They refused to call over to the other terminal to see if our flight was delayed over there or not, if the price was different than getting a flight with another airline in the terminal we were in, and basically refused to help us in any way shape or form. What was even more sad was that people not related to Etihad was more helpful and assisted us when we didn't even pay them any money. But Etihad who was clearly at fault here did less than nothing for their passenger just because I did not book my connecting flight through them? Not only is that a dumb response, but totally irresponsible.
Though I know I have read about amazing experiences some people have had with this airline on their website and FB PAGE, the fact that this was my experience makes it even worse since I know sometimes Etihad chooses to treat SOME people like human beings but treated my family like we didn't matter.
