Anyone have any thoughts on my problem with Emirates
 

Hi, I’m a newbie and I’m hoping that someone somewhere can help me with a very frustrating Emirates problem. The story thus far: My significant other and I flew to Auckland NZ from Birmingham UK. We booked our flights direct with Emirates over the phone approx 8 months before we were due to travel at a cost of £2,500. We wanted to fly to Dunedin on the South Island but Emirates do not fly there - this was confirmed on the phone when booking the flights. We therefore booked the last flight of the day out of Auckland with Air New Zealand. We were due to arrive in Auckland at 2.00pm local time and our Dunedin flight was due to leave at 4.00pm local time giving us 2 hours to change flights.

However, our flight out of Birmingham was delayed over an hour due to operational problems, we were then late leaving Dubai by almost 2 hours due to technical problems on board the aircraft and finally we were late leaving Sydney where the aircraft was emptied of crew and passengers, it was cleaned and new passengers got on - the outcome of all these delays - we missed our flight to Dunedin.

Emirates didn’t/don’t want to know despite the fact that they are responsible for us missing our flight and for further spends of £800 for overnight accommodation & new flights plus flights/accommodation we’d already booked and paid for.

We of course approached the desk clerk on the Emirates desk in Auckland Airport on arrival and she was nothing less than rude, aggressive and totally unsympathetic and could think of nothing better to say than “claim it off your insurance’.

Given that we have been travelling 24 hrs maybe a bit more, at best we expected that Emirates would find us overnight accommodation, we didn’t expect them to organise flights but we never even got an apology.

So, we’ve written to their wonderful Customer Services Dept who basically said hard luck although they did admit to 2 of the delays but conveniently forgot about Sydney. We’ve written to the President in Dubai Sir Tim Clark KBE who didn’t afford us the courtesy of a reply, although we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t get to read the letter.

We’ve have a few stroppy emails from Customer Services and a letter that said you need to be flying out of an EU airport to claim under the new regulations - funnily enough we always thought that Birmingham UK was in the EU (they must have moved it!) and an email that basically denied the delays happened, so all in all not the best service from the airline with 2 advertising straplines that read ‘Whatever you need, we’re here to take care of you’ and Don’t you think you deserve a little more than just customer service? Good, so do we’. Whoever writes this rubbish obviously have never travelled with them. Anyway, I digress, please does anyone have any thoughts on where to go from here, as we would really like our £800 back. Many thanks in advance.

Emirates is only responsible to get you to your ticketed destination on the EK ticket. What happens after you get there (even if delayed) is not their responsibility. You booked way too short of a connection to begin with. You probably should have planned on staying in AKL for the night.

How long after scheduled arrival in AKL did you get there? I believe you would have had to been delayed at least 3 hours (or is it 4?) getting to AKL to get any EU compensation anyways.

This is unfortunately a possibility when you book separate tickets especially with such a tight window. For intl - domestic connections I would have considered 4-5 hours gap.

Emirates doesn't owe you anything in connection with your missed separately ticketed flight. I would always plan to spend the night when separately booking an onward flight coming in off of a long international flight....too high of a risk for a misconnect. This is where trip insurance would have been useful, especially having set up a too-short connecting time on your own. Unfortunately I can't offer any advice other than to chalk it up to experience and a lesson learned for next time.

I agree that's way too short of a connection to a different airline on a separate ticket. OP could have stayed in a hotel within walking distance of AKL airport for under $100 USD which is a drop in the bucket for the cost of a trip to New Zealand.

To the original poster -- did you ask Air New Zealand if they could place you on standby to Dunedin after missing your original flight?

As this inquiry relates to Emirates, I have moved the thread from the flame-free Information Desk to the airline-specific forum where the knowledgeable posters can provide additional information.

scoow, Info Desk moderator

I can't comment on the conduct of the attendant at Auckland.

However with respect to the hotel and missed flight, what some of the others have stated before me holds true. If the connecting flight was also EK or a code share flight, they will provide you with accommodation and meals. However as this is a 2 tickets on two separate flights, they really do not have the responsibility.

What happened was unfortunate, but take it as a good lesson learned. I would advice if you need to arrange for similar flights always buy travel insurance which covers flight delays, and/or give yourself at least 5~6 hrs (better to have a over night stay and take in the local sights) transit time to factor in the unforeseen.

I agree with the above. Unfortunately for the OP, their contract was to get him for BHX to AKL which they did. They are not responsible for any on-carriage that you may have.

For anyone who may be interested, NZ do offer 'HFL' fares which are combinable with any airline's fares. They are fairly expensive but should have been able to be added to the OP's ticket. Once an HFL is added to the ticket, that sector (in this case would be AKL-DUD) takes on the same fare rules as the international sectors.

We were doing MAN-DXB-KUL earlier this year, booked a domestic flight with MH to Penang about 3 hrs after scheduled arrival into KUL. Typically, our DXB-KUL flight had a technical delay. Thankfully I managed to get EK to tag our bags all the way to Penang, so when we arrived in KUL, they had ground staff with our names ready to whizz us through security to get us to the connecting flight with time to spare. They had no real requirement to do it as it was a seperate booking, but I was certainly impressed with the assistance. Other passengers with connecting flights were afforded similar assistance.

I am a bit of an EK fanboy, but they have always been fairly reasonable with any issues I had, and as with other replies so far, claiming it off insurance and chalking it down to a lesson learned is the best way forward.
The rudeness is uncalled for, and you should feedback that back to EK, however I dont think it will get you far in terms of compensation

I'm regularly in AKL and I know the ladies from the ticket counter well. I messed up a ticket and the fixed it with waiving the rebooking fee once. And all the other times they were with all the passengers very nice and helpfull. Maybe you felt it rude because the answer was not what you expected?

If you had booked a Manchester to Dunedin fare, you would have been covered, equally your Travel insurance will cover you for extra costs due to the delayed connection.

What you traveled half way across the world with no travel insurance?

I do shop around for airfares, and if i am combining two carriers on different tickets due to price I add in the cost of an overnight - its worth it for the lack of worry tension stress a short connection with delays might give you.

Its a travel lesson, hard to learn it the expensive way.

Maybe it would have been better to book a flight MAN SYD then connect direct to DUD.

Just a thought.

As for rudeness, I have always experienced great service from the EK staff, so maybe you got back what you gave. Was not there - so no idea what happened but if you snarl at someone pretty good chance they will snarl back. If you are nice to someone, Hi how is your day going, ours is great also we just had a great flight all the way from Manchester, but now we have a slight problem, can you help me find a solution for it.

normally the response is sure, I'm sorry to hear about your problem, tell me about it and I will see what I can do.

Ah - thats not good, look, let me book you on the first flight in the morning, and let me call ANZ and see if they can give you a nights accomodation and some meal vouchers.

Maybe ....... maybe not

Assuming you have it, have you contacted your travel insurance company regarding the costs incurred. You may be covered by your insurance

As far as Emirates goes, it is not accountable for the flights to Dunedin. If you had purchased a ticket from Emirates to take you all the way to Dunedin, then it would then have been responsible for rebooking your flights and for providing accommodation. A ticket combining the flights to AKL and the onward flights could have been purchased from a travel agent.

In this case, once it delivered you to Auckland, its responsibilities ended

With separate tickets , having to clear customs/immigration and getting to the domestic terminal, 2 hours is not enough time to allow for any delays that could occur

Looking at the schedules, EK412 is due to arrive at 13:00 and NZ has flights to Dunedin as late at 17:55 sun-fri and 16:00 on sat. Since the last flight was at 16:00 , I assume that yourarrival into AKL was last saturday - EK412 arrived at 14:45 , so a total of 1hr 45 minutes late. Even EU261 , if can be construed to handle onward delays, would not provide any compensation for such a short delay

Really you should have booked to travel the next day , since 3 hours is just not enough time to allow in AKL on separate tickets

Changing crews at Sydney is normal procedure ; it is a legal requirement for Australia that all passengers disembark at Sydney; it is not permitted to remain onboard during the connection

Although too late to be any use this time, you would have been better off booking flights to Christchurch for getting to Dunedin ( EK does offer service to CHC), since if you did miss the 18:00 flight from Christchurch , at least it is driveble to Dunedin in about 5 hours

TI may cover it, it does depend on the policy. This is not actually a missed connection but just arriving too late at airport for a flight. These were not connected flights

There is no flight from SYD-DUD

In this case , it is purely something between the passenger and Air New Zealand. For a 105 minute delay into Auckland ( arriving at 14:45 ) , I cannot see EK agreeing to pay for a hotel

Sorry to hear about all the trouble you faced op, but in reality, 2 hours is simply cutting it too fine especially when you need to collect bags and pass through immigration and customs. You'l find several posts here about people wary of 2 hour connections even on flights operated by EK.

Have never flown EK personally but have heard quite a few stories of delays and missed connections on EK flights, as well as overbooking. Is this something systemic?