To :
[email protected]
Dear Sirs,
I was a passenger on your flight EK 788 of 25th August 2010 from Accra to Dubai. This flight was scheduled to depart from Accra at 1730hrs but was delayed till past 0100hrs the following morning due to shortage of crew.
I am writing to draw your attention to the extremely poor handling of the situation by Emirates with regards to passenger welfare. While the delay itself may have been due to circumstances outside of Emirates' control, the service recovery was an area that Emirates could control but unfortunately failed to deal with passenger welfare appropriately.
The key areas of service deficiency were :
a) Checkin staff declined to provide lounge invitations (a published benefit of Skywards Gold status) at 2100hrs and instead instructed passengers to proceed immediately to the boarding gate. This instruction was neither necessary nor appropriate as there were no Emirates staff present at the boarding gate till just after 2200hrs and the gate area itself was occupied by British Airways passengers.
b) No refreshments or even drinking water were available for passengers who reported to the boarding gate at 2100hrs and passed through security screening. Physical passenger boarding did not commence till almost 0030hrs. As a result, these passengers were confined within an enclosed secure area for almost 4 hours under very cramped, chaotic and uncomfortable conditions.
c) Altercations ensued between passengers and Delta Air Lines security staff who forcibly removed Emirates passengers from seats in the gate area to enable later arriving Delta passengers to be seated. This was especially troubling as Emirates staff appeared to be powerless to stop these Delta security operatives from physically manhandling passengers and their hand baggage.
d) Once the flight was airborne, the first meal service offered was an inadequate "light snack" at 0130hrs. The Cabin Crew may have had the opportunity to eat dinner at their hotel prior to boarding the aircraft and they may have viewed the meal as appropriate in that context; however most passengers had been stranded at the airport for many hours with no access to refreshments and would have preferred a proper dinner to be served as listed in the provided menus.
The poor handling of this situation has resulted in significant lost productivity during my limited time in Dubai. The entire morning was forfeited as we landed at 1315hrs rather than 0545hrs as scheduled. I am sure you understand that it is not easy to reschedule plans intended for a Thursday during Ramadan.
I would appreciate if you could provide some sort of goodwill gesture to compensate for the inconveniences that I was subjected to. I am willing to accept a reasonable amount of Skywards miles towards this end.
Finally, please pass on my thanks to the Accra town office staff who proactively notified passengers of the delay in the early morning, as well as the crew of the flight who worked a physically demanding schedule at minimum rest to ensure that the disruption was not exacerbated even further.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
My Name Here
Skywards Gold Member 123456789
Booking Ref ABCDEF
E-ticket 1761234567890