Complaint Review: Emirates Airlines - Dubai Internet

It is with absolute disappointment and dismay I am writing this note with a hope that some change is forthcoming from your organization in terms of training your staff and also to provide your clients a sense of dignity.

I travelled from Toronto to Dubai on EK242 on 23rd Jan, 2013. The flight arrived late and therefore departed 2 hours behind schedule. It landed in Dubai at 21.10 and my connecting flight was at 21.55. I was stopped immediately after disembarking and asked to follow an agent to a counter because I will NOT be able to take the connection even though the connection happens to leave the same terminal A where I landed. Me and a group of passengers went through a harrowing experience:

• No hotel accommodation was provided. The wait was for the next flight 24 hours later.
• Absolutely NO consideration was made even though the missed transfer was on account of Emrites not arriving on time.
• The agent/s were very inconsiderate even with passengers with children, They made passengers feel unwanted and we were made to feel like it was our 'privilege' to even spend time at the beautiful airport in Dubai.
• One of the agents quipped 'we did not force you to travel by emirates. You came on your own accord I believe he meant that Emirates is too large to expect business from us.

Even though I could have taken the connection, my boarding pass issued in Toronto for the connection  was torn off, and was issued a fresh boarding pass for a flight leaving after 24 hours. I was then directed to stand in another line to pick up my food voucher

When I reached the agent at the'Food voucher' counter, I was shocked to be issued a food voucher for 1 meal for the entire 24 hour period. The agent then stamped on my boarding pass Food Voucher Issued. When asked if residents of UAE are entitled for one meal a day, the agent was quick to reply that if is FREE. He then went on to say that I can come back and stand in line for the next voucher at the time of the next meal. I then asked him why he stamped Food voucher Issued on my boarding pass and the next agent would certainly not issue me another voucher for which he quipped It is up to the agent. I have therefore decided not to use the food voucher Emirates has issued would like to return it with thanks as a sign of protest.

It is my understanding that Em rites is a full service airline and I have a boarding pass from Toronto all the way to Cochin. It is also my understanding that being a full service airline, you are responsible for the safe and comfortable transport from the point of check in till the destination.
Essentially you have let me feel so humiliated and in addition to that caused me additional expense and more importantly you have destroyed my entire 24 hours and I was forced to exist for 24 hours in a very hostile environment.

A brief background about myself: I used to fly with Emirates earlier and moved to Etihad. I am a Etihad Gold member and I recently (about 4 months back) moved back to Emirates because a friend of mine suggested I use Emirates due to the radical change over the years and within months I have attained the silver status and heading out to become a gold member, however incidents like this does not help. The quality of an airline is known only when they show their concern in handling a difficult situation..

I happened to read online an article titled Maurice Flanagan's Emirates Airline: Flying High and Treating Customers like Sheikhs. Not sure if the author knows the meaning of Treating clients like Sheikhs. Probably they must replace sheikhs with slaves when it comes to treatment of passengers.

It is understandable that such attitudes are expected from a country where passports of expat workers from the third world are seized by the employer and the employee is deprived of the freedom to travel freely in and out of the country. However, emirates must understand that airline passengers are paying and travelling and is exactly the opposite of employers paying their employees. I am not drawing parallels or justifying the seizure of passports of expat employees.

There is no contact information provided on the Emirates website and a communication to Gary Chapman, Maurice Flanagan, and Patrick Sweeney of the emirates board was returned to me undelivered. I will therefore post this online and I hope this correspondence reaches the right people and hope action is taken to correct situation like this. I am certainly expecting a
response from the airline. I dont think I deserve the treatment meted out to me today by your team. I am still waiting at the Dubai airport, I have killed 7 hours this far, and 17 to go.