FINASTORY
Nov 14, 11, 1:05 pm
Be warned this is a long post, not even sure if this belongs here, but posting it as I was traveling as an AA passenger on Etihad airlines. Please feel free to move this to the appropriate forum. Thank you!
Just wanted to tell you all about my recent flight experience with Etihad.
Wanted to try out Etihad and booked on AA.com
AA flight from ORD-CDG, AA Codeshare on Etihad from CDG-AUH, and then Etihad from AUH-HYD
The flight till AUH was excellent. No questions about that.
In AUH as we were boarding the flight, the GA stopped almost all the passengers and said that the Carry on bag could not be taken in as this was a smaller plane (believe this was A320) and our bags were either big or heavy. I challenged them on the heavy part, as my bag was empty with 1 pair of clothes, sport shoes and an SLR camera which is sort of unwieldy to carry it alone. The GA told us that I was behaving irresponsibly and there was nothing to check the weight correctly, and if I continue to act the same way, she would not allow me to board. This was just a valet check in and we will get our bags along with our other luggage in the destination. Well, there was nothing important in these bags and hence I really did not care to create a fuss and went along with it. (BTW, I was like the 10-15th person on the plane. And the plane was not full and a lot of bins were empty when we started to move from the gate.) So, almost everyone basically had to handover atleast 1 of their carryon’s to the GA. Some people removed their valuables and some people didn’t, with me belonging to the later group. When they took our bags they put the checked luggage tags on them and gave us the proof tags (if that is what we call them) (and…in hindsight, this should have been the first red flag)
When we landed, what we found out was, Etihad did not load our carryon’s into the plane as it was over loaded and were told that it would come the next day. Lot of the passengers had problems with that. Some had jewelry, some had important papers they needed to take to their visa appointments the next day.
My grief was that this was my brand new Briggs & Reily 20’ carryon, with a used Nikon DSLR. Still with nothing to do, I just filed my report and went home. Filed for my AMEX baggage delay claim and was sort of glad for the delay to make some needed purchases. That night, I called up their number at 12 midnight and someone in their office told me that our bags were on their way and could be collected by 5 am in the morning. So, next day, at 5 am, I am in the terminal asking for my bags. Now no one lift the phone and they tell us we (there were others in the same boat) have to wait till 9:30 am when someone comes so that they can clear our bags because of customs issues. I was in no hurry, so was willing to wait. Fortunately (for me) or Unfortunately (for others), 2 of the people had Visa appointments at around 9 am and were really desperate to get their visa papers and hence were persistent about getting atleast the papers from the bag. Finally around 7:30 one person from the Etihad team comes out and tells us that there is not much he can do as none of the bags came thru even today, and that even today’s passengers did not get their baggage. Etihad would try to send our bags by Emirates later today. Now as you can imagine everyone there was really furious and started barking at this guy. Finally we forced him to call the duty manager and he says “Etihad cannot guarantee delivery even today, but it will surely come in the next 1-2 days”. Now, I know my DSLR is gone for sure….So, I asked what about the compensation? We were told that there is no compensation for these bags as we received atleast 1 of our checked bags. Those other unfortunate passengers with visa papers, I am really feeling sorry for them they now stand to lose atleast 2-3 weeks as they now have to rebook their appointments, and maybe change their flight plans and so on. So, this is where things stand as of now…
One big truth I Learned from this trip, no use flying any other airline, if you are not an Elite with them. Especially Coach.
:(
Just wanted to tell you all about my recent flight experience with Etihad.
Wanted to try out Etihad and booked on AA.com
AA flight from ORD-CDG, AA Codeshare on Etihad from CDG-AUH, and then Etihad from AUH-HYD
The flight till AUH was excellent. No questions about that.
In AUH as we were boarding the flight, the GA stopped almost all the passengers and said that the Carry on bag could not be taken in as this was a smaller plane (believe this was A320) and our bags were either big or heavy. I challenged them on the heavy part, as my bag was empty with 1 pair of clothes, sport shoes and an SLR camera which is sort of unwieldy to carry it alone. The GA told us that I was behaving irresponsibly and there was nothing to check the weight correctly, and if I continue to act the same way, she would not allow me to board. This was just a valet check in and we will get our bags along with our other luggage in the destination. Well, there was nothing important in these bags and hence I really did not care to create a fuss and went along with it. (BTW, I was like the 10-15th person on the plane. And the plane was not full and a lot of bins were empty when we started to move from the gate.) So, almost everyone basically had to handover atleast 1 of their carryon’s to the GA. Some people removed their valuables and some people didn’t, with me belonging to the later group. When they took our bags they put the checked luggage tags on them and gave us the proof tags (if that is what we call them) (and…in hindsight, this should have been the first red flag)
When we landed, what we found out was, Etihad did not load our carryon’s into the plane as it was over loaded and were told that it would come the next day. Lot of the passengers had problems with that. Some had jewelry, some had important papers they needed to take to their visa appointments the next day.
My grief was that this was my brand new Briggs & Reily 20’ carryon, with a used Nikon DSLR. Still with nothing to do, I just filed my report and went home. Filed for my AMEX baggage delay claim and was sort of glad for the delay to make some needed purchases. That night, I called up their number at 12 midnight and someone in their office told me that our bags were on their way and could be collected by 5 am in the morning. So, next day, at 5 am, I am in the terminal asking for my bags. Now no one lift the phone and they tell us we (there were others in the same boat) have to wait till 9:30 am when someone comes so that they can clear our bags because of customs issues. I was in no hurry, so was willing to wait. Fortunately (for me) or Unfortunately (for others), 2 of the people had Visa appointments at around 9 am and were really desperate to get their visa papers and hence were persistent about getting atleast the papers from the bag. Finally around 7:30 one person from the Etihad team comes out and tells us that there is not much he can do as none of the bags came thru even today, and that even today’s passengers did not get their baggage. Etihad would try to send our bags by Emirates later today. Now as you can imagine everyone there was really furious and started barking at this guy. Finally we forced him to call the duty manager and he says “Etihad cannot guarantee delivery even today, but it will surely come in the next 1-2 days”. Now, I know my DSLR is gone for sure….So, I asked what about the compensation? We were told that there is no compensation for these bags as we received atleast 1 of our checked bags. Those other unfortunate passengers with visa papers, I am really feeling sorry for them they now stand to lose atleast 2-3 weeks as they now have to rebook their appointments, and maybe change their flight plans and so on. So, this is where things stand as of now…
One big truth I Learned from this trip, no use flying any other airline, if you are not an Elite with them. Especially Coach.
:(