My 20 months old daughter and I were flying from New Delhi To Dubai. The flight got delayed from New Delhi and we missed our connecting flight to Boston. On board the plane from Delhi, we were told a few minutes before landing that the Emirates crew members would be there to assist the passengers with connections. There was nobody there to help with connections. I had to find my own way, go through another security check, even there, when I told one Emirates crew member that I needed to hurry or else I'd miss my flight, she simply pointed me to one of the security check lines. When I finally made it to the gate, it had been closed and what a surprise, there wasn't any staff member there either.
I went to their reservations desk and they told me that the flight has already taken off. There were still more than 15 minutes to the departure time and had there been someone helping me with the connection, my daughter and I would have made it to our flight.
After waiting for a really long time with other passengers in the line at the reservation desk, when I finally reached a staff member, she told me with a cold face that they already knew that we were going to miss our connection and they would have me take the next flight to Boston which was 6 hours later. I asked if I could get some assistance to rest at the airport since I was travelling alone with a screaming and tired infant, they rejected it. The staff member simply pointed me to a "Child changing room" saying that I could rest there!! These changing rooms, mind you, are toilets with infant changing tables and a wash basin, nothing else!! I never expected such rude behavior from an airline crew member.
Also, if they already knew we would have to take the next flight out, why would they make passengers stand in an awfully slow moving line when they could have simply handed over the new boarding passes for the next flight?
This would have got easier if the flight were any comfortable. I had a seat on one of the bassinet rows and I asked for a bassinet as soon as I sat down on my seat. I was told that the bassinets were only given after the flight took off. I waited and the airline crew never got back to me on that. They started serving food when I asked for a bassinet again. This time, I had a tray of food on the tiny tray in front of my seat and a sleeping child on my lap. I could hardly move and they said, we cannot get a bassinet right now, you'd have to wait for the food service to be done. I would have waited for over an hour when they finally returned and told me that the bassinet was too small for my daughter and they couldn't give me one due to security restrictions. When I asked how would I eat my food, I was told they they couldn't do anything about it.
Isn't the airline crew trained to take care of passengers travelling alone with children, help them out with food etc?
Finally, the nice lady sitting next to me came to my help. She held my sleeping child while I finished my meal. I'd go on without eating for the remainder of this 14+ hour long flight.
After this horrendous ordeal, when we landed in Boston, I kept waiting for one of my baggage to arrive on the designated baggage claim but when I finally gave up and asked a fellow passenger, they pointed me to the next baggage claim where I finally found my last bag. There were others who were also waiting for their luggage and didn't know where to look for them since generally, all the baggage from one flight usually arrives in one baggage claim!!! Once again, Emirates was not responsible enough to tell the passengers about this.
I could have booked my ticket with another airlines for a much cheaper price but I'd heard good things about Emirates. Looks like they started off well but have since drastically deteriorated their service.
I've never had such bad experience travelling internationally with any other airlines. I hope Emirates stops taking its customers for granted. read more