Airlines may be sympathetic if you show up late for your flight, but the idea that EK needed to perform "no show recovery" is quite absurd, I'm sorry. There's a flat tire rule with some airlines in the case of some sort of unexpected incident, but showing up late to the airport due to "rain and traffic" in Bangkok is careless. It would have been great if EK had rebooked onto one of those flights with open seats, and certainly frustrating that you had trouble getting in touch with an empowered call center agent, but being upset that EK wanted a price difference when your friend missed their flight and wanted to be re-booked just isn't realistic.