Etihad Airways

Not Verified | Amman to Abu Dhabi. Very bad experience. Etihad used to be a good airline but not any more. We used to have meals as it is 3 hours flight. Now they changed the meals to sandwiches with very bad taste. I don't think it was made for humans. The staff is really rude. The AC was not working well and the temperature in the plane was really hot. In summary, we are paying a lot and not getting the true value of money.

✅ Trip Verified | London to Abu Dhabi. Airport staff in London and on plane were amazing. The bus service on the other hand was disgusting. Driver refused to let me get on the bus even though it was not full to capacity. He then told me to sit and wait after half an hour of sitting in the sun with all the bus drivers standing around with empty buses staring at me giggling. He told me you can’t get on the bus till 10. This was at 8 in the morning. The staff inside Abu Dhabi airport weren’t any better when I approached the man to complain he Just slouched in his chair like a fat king with no care.

✅ Trip Verified | Abu Dhabi to London. Etihad have recently cancelled the ability to book / change Economy Class seats free of charge before the flight. What is worse is that when you try to book a seat using their useless "Guest" program it simply loads a splash screen saying "unable to manage booking" so you are left wondering if there is a glitch with your ticket. My ticket was issued early July and I changed the seat on my outward leg no issue. Turns out that this new policy was introduced from July 10 so because my return leg is late August I have to pay to change my seat. That seems doubly unfair as the ticket was purchased with the understanding that seat changes were a free option. To rub even more salt in to the wound apparently you can check in 48 hours before online but you can only choose a seat for free 24 hours before. So you are left with a Mexican stand-off between checking in and being auto allocated a seat or checking in "late" after selecting a free seat from a depleted choice! Cynical or what? And it gets worse. Both in my "Guest" account and using their web site I can't even access to pay for a seat choice! I fly Etihad on business monthly and this horrible, cynical, unfair policy is a deal-breaker for me. +1 lost customer Etihad!

✅ Trip Verified | My septuagenarian parents who are physically challenged and were travelling alone wish to express their extreme satisfaction with the hospitality and care by the Etihad staff during their flight back to India. There was a severe crisis with floods hitting Kerala and the Kochi International airport being shut down. There was a long layover at Abu Dhabi airport as flights were being rescheduled to accommodate for cancelled flights. The staff were considerate enough to reschedule the tickets and provide the preferred airport considering my parents age. The service at the airport hotel where they were placed during the layover was exceptional.

✅ Trip Verified | Dublin to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi. Etihad needs to get a grip and not totally rip off their passengers. I wished to change just 1 leg of our 4 leg ticket to have a stay over in Abu Dhabi. I checked the current rate for the new date and it was practically identical to what we had paid. The current business return for the journey - all 4 legs - today is €2,250. Etihad wants the absurd sum of €2,300 to change just the 1 leg by 2 days .- remember, for which I had already paid. A mere single simple change of 1 leg fby 2 days so we could stay 2 nights on Abu Dhabi for which we had already paid. Quite disgraceful. Getting onto their basic and clearly understaffed agents is a waste of time. I was left for 22 minutes before the agent cut me off. Today it was 18 minutes before I got any answers. What on earth do these agents to for the 6 minutes she went away for, after 12 minutes already, just to check the next day flight? A 5-star airline? Perhaps when they started but not anymore. Etihad is at best a 3-star airline. By the way, on the flight, they ran out of all our choices for dinner so we did not eat.Good planning Etihad. Well done. My headphones did not work.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to Beirut via Abu Dhabi. At check-in, i was obliged to get rid of my carry on luggage, that I always travel with, as they insisted that it was too big. Once on board I saw that other passengers have bigger and larger carry on, and that was not fair.

✅ Trip Verified | Pune to Dusseldorf via Abu Dhabi. Etihad shares incorrect pickup numbers (Rail&Fly) and lets the customer sit at the additional cost. In October 2017 my wife and I flew with Etihad from TXL via AMS and AUH to PNQ. Originally the flight was to go directly from TXL via AUH to PNQ. However, there was a rebooking due to the Air Berlin bankruptcy, so that our flight went longer than planned. Even worse was the rebooking of the return flight, which did not go to Berlin as planned but to Düsseldorf from where we were to continue with the DB. For this we were given pick-up numbers, with which one would receive the train tickets directly at the automat. The outbound flight went as planned. On our return flight we arrived in DUS with a slight delay and hurried to the station. At the Automat it turned out, however, that the pick-up numbers were wrong. A DB employee checked on the computer and confirmed that there were no orders for the numbers provided. Since we had already reserved seats for the train, we decided to buy train tickets at our own expense to finally get home after the long flight. The train tickets were accordingly expensive (205 Euro for two persons) Only a few days later I contacted Etihad. Some e-mails and phone calls followed, until I was told to fill out a form with the bank details for reimbursement and the train tickets should be enclosed. I sent the documents by registered letter to Etihad in Berlin. Of course this was accepted (registered mail). However, there was never a reaction. Since I didn't buy my tickets directly from Etihad but from Flighttix.com, which I contacted first and which told me I had to contact Etihad because Etihad gave me the wrong pickup numbers, I contacted Flighttix.com again in April 2018. The contact persons were very friendly and promised me to clarify the matter with Etihad. E-mail correspondence followed between Flighttix, Etihad and myself, after which Etihad finally requested my bank details again for reimbursement. After I transmitted it, I thought it was finally done and I could sleep peacefully again. Unfortunately, there was never any refund. With my inquiries to Flighttix I got several times feedback that they will inquire with Etihad. My direct requests to the employee of Etihad (Commercial Planning Agent), with whom the correspondence took place, all went to nothing. E-mails were never answered and on the phone came only the automatic announcement that the contact person was currently not available. It's really sad how Etihad has behaved here. You are prepared to accept a much longer flight, even if you changed your reservation to a train journey, and in the end you would be left with additional costs and would be ignored by the airline after investing so much time and effort in clarifying the facts. The flight itself was fine. However, I will avoid Etihad in the future. My hope of receiving reimbursement and an apology after almost a year is fading.

✅ Trip Verified | Abu Dhabi to Delhi. Very disappointed, ground staff totally unorganized, there was no specific check in counter for each destination, we reached 3 hours before and were standing in line but the others who came late of different flights were been called forward when we asked the reason they said their flight is before us so that we have to call them first even when they came late. Due to which after 2:30 hour standing in line when we reach on check in counter they said flight is over booked and we have to re book it again. Then we again went to another counter for re-booking the ticket, the guy on rebooking counter was so slow took 1 hour to book 3 tickets and was not even bothered about the line. When we at last reach on the rebooking counter they gave us a flight of 10pm which were reaching New Delhi at 3:30 AM. Since our flight was canceled we we’re eligible for 200$ discount on nxt flight, lunch&dinner voucher and stay in hotel until we get our next flight as per etihad policy, person on rebooking counter gave us 200$ voucher only and when I asked, is there anything else we should get? he clearly said no. Then we went to his supervisor to complain about this, he send us again to him for other things - he gave us breakfast vouncher which was of no use and when i asked 3rd time he only gave me lunch and dinner voucher but still no hotel stay. The staff behavior was very disappointing and unprofessional.

✅ Trip Verified | Lahore to Washington via Abu Dhabi booked using Hotwise about 2 weeks prior to departure. We got the conformation email with the E ticket and PNR numbers. I verified the booking at Etihad website and everything looked fine. I was traveling with my child. At Lahore airport check in, I was only provided boarding passes from Lahore to Abu Dhabi and was advised that I would get the boarding passes for Washington in Abu Dhabi. When we arrived at Abu Dhabi, it turned out that next flight was overbooked and there were no seats. I was advised that all the flights to Washington were overbooked for next few days. The only option they gave me was to fly to Brussels the next day and then from there to Washington. We had no choice. It was very hard with the child traveling with me. Our travel duration suddenly went from 21 hours to 40 hours and we finally got to our destination a full day later. It was bad that they overbooked the flight but to make matters worse they failed to disclose it at the Lahore airport. If I was given a choice there, I would have opted not to board the first flight and gone over the alternatives with them there. I had the option of going home if things did not work out. But they never gave me that option and conned me in to boarding that first flight. They made our travel horrible and made us suffer. There were lines of people on transit desk arguing with them about the same issue. Is that how they would treat their own families. This was one of the worst air travel experience we had. Never Etihad. You lost at least our family.

✅ Trip Verified | While travelling from Wellington to Islamabad via Brisbane and Abu Dhabi. An 8 hours stay in Abu Dhabi no meal provided. The staff at help desk at Etihad Airways is extremely rude and not helpful. I rang help desk in Brisbane at least they have some customer service skill - they said sorry, but here in Abu Dhabi OMG!