I would like to let people know about the poor treatment of passengers by
Emirates during my recent return from Japan. Due to fog at Dubai, our
flight was initially diverted to Karachi, Pakistan (~30mins), then
Muscat Oman (~12hrs). The Muscat landing required a change of crew which
took ~6hours to arrive from Dubai 38minutes flying time away. (Surely
the same crew could have flown the last half hour or so?) An additional
delay of ~5hrs was caused by our departure being prevented by a group of
Nigerians who prevented us from boarding because they felt our flight
had been given precedence over theirs by Emirates. During the ~12hrs on
the ground, getting information as to what was going on from Emirates at
Muscat was near impossible. I find it unacceptable that Emirates via the
authorities at Muscat permitted this to happen. I was phoning Dubai for
info. Also, during this time we were only given a cool drink.
Arrival at Dubai was another nightmare. Lots of flights had been diverted
with the consequence that thousands of people had to re-book flights and
get new boarding passes because they had missed connections. The transit
desk at Dubai was hopelessly understaffed resulting in people standing
in queues for upto 12hours. Thankfully I am still OK but can imagine
that old people or families would have found this ten times more
difficult than I did. One got the cynical impression that this was so to
prevent Emirates having to foot the bill for hotel costs due to the
unscheduled stay at Dubai Airport. They prefferred us to struggle for
hours in the queues. On arrival back in Johannesburg 26hrs late, my
luggage didnt arrive. Apparently the first flight out of Dubai had no
luggage on board. Subsequent flights contained lots of luggage but not
necessarily that of the people on the flight. I estimate about only 60%
of the people on my flight got their luggage. Emirates was then
reluctant to assume responsibility for delivering my luggage when it
finally arrived on the 21st of November. Emirates used to be my carrier
of choice. Now I see them as a bunch of "Smelly-rats" and will avoid
flying with them if possible.