Etihad Airways

This is the second time on the A380 apartment and one can actually move around, crew were excellent. Being a vegan is normally very daunting as being provided with a tasty airline meal is hard despite the class of travel. The onboard chef made effort in providing a wonderful tasty meal. My only gripe would be on the ground where staff in Abu Dhabi could have been a little more responsive. I cannot recommend the apartment enough.

London to Melbourne via Abu Dhabi with Etihad Airways in business class. The duration of flight was fine, no problem. However 3 out of 4 bags were left in Abu Dhabi, one of which we thought was lost. The customer service afterwards was extremely uncaring and disgusting. The complaints procedure was diabolical to the extent that our emails were ignored and the final outcome was unsatisfactory. We are extremely distressed by what has happened and can find no excuse for their attitude. We flew business class, which we struggle to do financially but, because of our age it is necessary, and one woud expect exemplary service. The shortfall was enormous.

An absolutely atrocious experience. I booked business class tickets on Etihad early 2015 for a December flight from New York to Delhi via Abu Dhabi. The service on the ground was pretty good, as was the business seat on the flight. However, halfway through my flight to Abu Dhabi, the hostess approached me and said that one of my bags was left in NYC. Way to ruin the rest of my flight! She mentioned that it would be on the next flight 3 hours later and get to Delhi the same night, guaranteed. During the layover at Abu Dhabi, I checked the status of the bag, and Etihad said that it was all a misunderstanding, the bag had not in fact been left behind. So I arrived at Delhi expecting to find my bag. After waiting a full hour for the bag to come after being reassured by ground staff that I simply had to wait a "couple more minutes" I decided to talk to the lost baggage people. They had absolutely no clue what they were doing and haphazardly wrote me and incomplete missing baggage report to shuffle me out of their way. They also said that the bag would be delivered within 12 hours. After waiting 24 hours and calling the phone number they gave me at least 20 times (no joke), I finally got a response. Etihad said that they didn't know where the bag was. Anyway, to summarize the rest of the story, I got the bag 3 days later. All in all, Etihad Airways treated a business class passenger and family horribly. They didn't pick up the phone for the most part, were irresponsible both on ground and in the air, and were unable to handle the situation once it had happened.

When Etihad Airways have a tie up with another airline (Jet Airways), why not work as partners. My connecting flight from Mumbai to Geneva via Abu Dhabi was delayed for reasons known only to the airlins itself, and we were assured our connecting flight from Abu Dhabi (Etihad Airways) would wait for us. But that didn't happen and my flight was missed, I had take the night flight instead. Do Etihad Airways think I am jobless and it's ok to take later flight. If you can't coordinate well, please break this tie up because it's just a nuisance. This is the 3rd time with me it has happened, but the last time. I vow never to take Etihad Airways or Jet Airways again.

Dublin to Phuket via Abu Dhabi with Etihad Airways. Delayed at Dublin due to weather. In reality, 2 business class passengers checked in but never arrived. We waited while their names were continually announced while at the same time the pilot informing us that the delay was due to rain. The consequence was a tight transfer time which my 5 year old daughter and I managed to make only to be told we were booked on another flight to Bangkok (not Phuket). I refused this option and was told we would be put up in a hotel in Abu Dhabi. My daughter holds both Irish and Thai passports. She was travelling on the Thai passport but we needed a visa to leave the airport which we were told would not be a problem but eventually was. Then discovered my daughter's Irish passport was out of date (my fault obviously). So we had to stay within the airport. The result was spending the next 24hrs in Abu Dhabi airport spending the night in a cell-like room. We could not buy new clothes in duty free (Plenty of Prada sunglasses or Tag watches though). Eventually arriving in Phuket almost three days after departing from Dublin. What bothered me most was the lying/lack of proper management/brainless decision making/arrogance of some staff members which led to this situation happening in the first place. While I would never say never again, I will be checking out any and all alternatives next time.

Pathetic ground service before and after the flight. I had 2 stops and the routing was ORD-AUH-DEL-BLR, with DEL-BLR on Etihad's partner Jet Airways. My dissappointment began right at ORD. There was a huge crowd at check-in and the staff were visibly uninterested in their work. Got my boarding pass after waiting for an hour. My long name was not printed fully on the boarding pass but the staff said it was alright. Yet, the TSA refused to let me in and back I went to the counter - where I was made to wait in line again! Then, the staff wrote the missing characters of my name on the pass with a pen, signed it and said that should work, and it did. Why could this not have been done earlier? This might not have been new to them since long names are fairly common where I fly to! Past this, my disappointment got much bigger towards the end of the flight. Both ORD-AUH EY150 and AUH-DEL EY224 were delayed, because of which I missed my DEL-BLR Jet Airways 8 pm flight. Etihad had no single point of contact at DEL while Jet Airways refused to put us on the next flight without 'talking' to Etihad. Some guy, supposedly the Etihad staff at DEL (though he had an Air India name tag and no Etihad naming at the counter) wrote down our names and booking reference in a used piece of paper and disappeared for the next three hours. The stranded passengers were left at the Jet Airways counter. Jet Airways staff never cared anyway and left work as it got late! So much for the hyped Jet-Etihad partnership. Another group of stranded passengers found the absconding Etihad guy and his colleagues somewhere else in the terminal, informed us and then we were given connecting flights the next morning and a room at a hotel. Still, no proper arrangements were made to transport us to the hotel and every 4 passengers and all their baggage were dumped in a tiny midsize sedan to be taken to the hotel with multiple trips. There was more mix-up the next morning - Jet Airways said the bookings made by the Etihad guy were not confirmed, and refused to commit to us our flight timings. Thankfully, my flight had two vacant seats, one of which was given to me at the last minute. I ran to the boarding gate just as the final boarding call got concluded. Etihad made a simple long haul travel a real nightmare. Never again with them, ever.

While the seats were comfortable, entertainment good, and ticket counter service above average, the service and food inflight were below average. It seems Etihad Airways hire young people who are not very patient or graceful with the wide array of nationalities and personalities they would deal with. On several occasions I saw young flight stewards tell customers to wait their turn, or be patient in a manner that was unnecessarily gruff and rude. One even put her hand up to a man's face when he aimed to clarify how many vegetarian meals his family had ordered. You would have thought he had directly insulted her. The staff seem a bit on edge and do the minimum in the department of friendly service. I must say how unacceptable it is that they serve warm drinks with no ice available, including hard liquor. People were getting hot sodas, and uniced straight whiskey. Why is there no ice? This is ridiculous. It was like this to and from Asia from North America. It seems to be a planned thing. Never order 'vegetarian' meals, they are the most flavorless, fatless meals ever. They believe vegetarian means 'vegan' and they gave me a meal of a bunch of pasta balls with a boring dry minimal tomato sauce and a bean salad that looked beautiful but was not fully cooked. I should have ordered "Asian Vegetarian" which would included cheese. On one flight that was only partially filled, the staff were kind enough to find an Asian vegetarian meal to replace the very bland tasteless 'vegetarian' (but really bland vegan) meal and that meal was delicious. They had no tv shows that weren't fiction dramas - I would have liked some talk shows or news shows to learn about current events in different countries. Curt staff that don't know how to gracefully handle people who deserve a lot of respect, a lack of ice, and terrible vegan meals makes me rate the airline a bit lower than many other airlines I have flown with to get overseas.

On 1st of December 2015 with my wife I traveled from Washington to Chennai via Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi Etihad Airways informed the flight to Chennai has been cancelled so early morning put us on flight EY 238 to Bangalore and left us helpless without our Checked in Baggage. So we had to wait in Bangalore for another 5 days before the airline could trace and return our luggage.. It was the most harrowing experience with Etihad Airways which did not bother to help us in anyway either with our stay in Bangalore or our transfer to Chennai..

One way flight AUH-BKK with Etihad Airways, had booked business class but were unable to check in on line. Limo was 40 mins late to pick up, no big deal and got us there in time. Were upgraded to first which was great as I am gold member. Lounge as ever good, not busy, food ok, couple of cocktails and boarded, Jet Airways configured aircraft. Suite great plenty of room, looking a bit aged. Overall food was good, wines great. Sleeper suits comfy and as this was a night flight, bed was made up and got 3 hours sleep. Arrived on time. Overall a pleasent experience, and grateful for the upgrade but I found the ground staff and air crews are loosing their touch, they appeared disorganized, unable to communicate, smiling was not in the guide book and lacked any sense of service training. I feel their must be issues in the camp with the retention of staff as both ground and air crew lacked the professional touch.

I travelled Etihad Airways from London to Kathmandu on 11th December, and it was one of the worst ever. First thing you will be given the menu but when it comes to your place you won't get the meal of your choice because they got limited and you will be given veg Pasta which is one of the worst. If you are in last group of boarding your hand luggage will be given to the cargo with main luggage and they gonna say you that there is no enough space because it's a small aircraft. Its the third day of my arrival to Kathmandu and still today I have not got my main luggage. I have been wearing same dress for three days and planning to buy some today. It's really disgusting.