Etihad Airways

✅ Trip Verified | Melbourne to Belgrade via Abu Dhabi. I have been using Etihad for the last 7 years, initially we were happy with the service. Later on we joined Etihad guest programm, as 4 of us from our family traveling often , and that helps to earn miles. In the past we often didn't get credits for our flight, so we tried to do retroclaim by ourselves but sometimes it didn't work when we upgraded from the economy into business class. We would write to retroclaim centre and that would help, but sometimes even that wouldn't help and we had to ring, but eventually the problem would be sorted out. The last flight of my wife hasn't been credited for a long time but now we need these miles soon in order for us to book the next flight. Despite writing to retroclaim and ringing Etihad which has got the call centre in Belgrade, nothing helped. In the last 7 weeks I rang the Etihad call centre in Belgrade four times and was disappointed how they handled my concern. When I rang for the third time I explained tat I needed these miles in a 10 days time in order to book the next flight. I expected help as I earned the gold Etihad guest card after all these years. The operator promised to me that she would personally take care of the situation and in 10 days she would update me with the progress by phone call. After 10 days nothing was done so I decided to ring. After waiting for about two and half hours and no one ringing me I rang back and this time spoke to a very rude person who kept interrupting me and basically told me to just wait as they can't help. I am thinking of flying with Qatar from now on as I heard they are excellent.

✅ Trip Verified | London to Sydney via Abu Dhabi. Everything is by the book with this airline, won't accommodate any flexibility or minor requests. Simple request to have the new baggage policy apply for my trip (1x23kg vs 30kg total) and or options for bringing a second bag. No avail, only option was to pay for a second bag at a ridiculous rate or $900+AUD, even your call centre staff were appalled. I simply wanted to travel with 2 bags to ease the load, but no, you can't even accommodate that. Why is this flexibility important? If something goes wrong, I want an airline that can understand an issue from a human's perspective and not simply throw policy, terms and conditions.

✅ Trip Verified | Bangkok to Zurich via Abu Dhabi. Lady at luggage drop first discussed whatever it was for 10 minutes with another passenger, then let a couple unpack and repack their suitcases instead of sending them away to do that elsewhere. Luggage drop is luggage drop, please! My aisle seat that I had chosen during online checking was changed to a window seat. When asked why, no proper answer was given except that the plane was full, the plane is no more or less full whether my seat is changed or not, so this could obviously not be the reason and my aisle seat hat been free when i had checked in. Obviously, they gave it to somebody else who had checked in later than me. After boarding, cabin crew tried for a full half hour to find an aisle seat for a drunk passenger because he said he might need to go to the toilet quickly. I see, drunk hooligans get their wishes filled, on the expenses of other passengers! Then the crew ordered five (!) different people to take the seat beside me, only to make them change again to yet another seat and another seat. What good is online check in if you the crew changes the seats whenever and for whatever reason they please? If a family with 7 people is too stupid to check in online in due time, then let them sit in separate rows and distant seats and don‘t make it the problem of other passengers. Next, the crew chatted again and again with a mother with two young kids instead of serving my and other passenger‘s food. All in all, flight was heavily overbooked, check in and boarding complete chaos, and the crew openly and heavily preferred some passengers over others. I will avoid Etihad in the future whenever possible!

✅ Trip Verified | London to Sydney via Abu Dhabi. Very disappointing that Etihad have twice substituted an A380 with a Boeing 777 on a 13+ hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney. The Boeing is older, noisier with far less space than the Airbus. Etihad heavily promote the A380 on all their media platforms. I have paid on average about £3,500 each trip with my decision based equally on the aircraft as well as the airline. What is most disappointing is the lack of engagement from Etihad when I have complained. It appears the concept of customer service is quite an alien one. Oddly on both occasions when Etihad have used 777s instead of the promoted A380s, citing “technical issues”, the. A380 appears to be far from full as a 777 could not accommodate all passengers. Will think hard before booking with Etihad again.

✅ Trip Verified | Sydney to Rome via Abu Dhabi. I booked my tickets over the phone with a call centre and the experience was excellent. I was assured as a Velocity Gold Member I would have lounge access in Abu Dhabi both ways, in Sydney and in Rome. I was told only that my changed booking from Bangkok to Danang would not be with Etihad but with Bangkok Airways. I gave the call centre staff member all 3 Velocity membership numbers as we are a family pooler. They were recorded duly. So, all good. I then also, as a precaution, emailed Velocity and Etihad again to confirm lounge access and received a response from both airways advising of lounge access details. Everything was great at Sydney except I was told they could not print off my boarding pass for Abu Dhabi to Rome as there was a problem with their software. Never mind, these things happen. We experienced the lounge in Sydney and it was, it has to be said, pretty solid. Food and drink were on the mark, and service was good. On arrival in Abu Dhabi, however, things started to unravel. We were shuffled to 3 different places before I was able to be issued my boarding pass. Then off we went to the lounge. On arrival at Al Rheim lounge we were advised we could not access as our forward journey to Rome was operated by Alitalia. Despite the emails I had from both airlines, no go, as it was a codeshare flight. I was advised to write a complaint to Etihad once we were back. So, we wiped our losses and paid for another lounge. On the way back, no lounge in Rome, but we were allowed access to the Al Rheim lounge in Abu Dhabi. However, when we arrived back, things grew worse. I lodged a complaint with the details and evidence. Then we waited for our points and waited. And waited some more. Finally we lodged a request with Velocity and waited the 2 months. We then contacted Velocity again and they said they would need to escalate the issue with Etihad. We were also told by the attendant at Velocity Gold member inquiries that Etihad were "known" for this type of behaviour and often allocated points and status credits incorrectly. It has been a lot of work to try and get this mess sorted out. Since January when we wrote a complaint to Etihad we haven't even had a response. It has to be said that for the 3 of us, it was our first and last experience with Etihad. What a disappointment.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to Dhaka via Abu Dhabi. No more flying with Etihad Airways. Service was pretty bad from Toronto to Abu Dhabi. I never had such a bad food like this. All very spicy and passenger don't have choice. I flew with them few years ago and food was pretty good. Also fleet was quite old for long range (13 hrs) flight. The table doesn't hold the tray.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew biz class from Abu Dhabi to Paris, though economy Bangkok-Abu Dhabi. On the first segment (B-777) the seats were very tight and the food service poor, to be charitable. Worse was the biz class to Paris. Though the A380 seating was fine, the cabin service was terrible - disinterested and abrupt flight attendants and an incredibly limited selection of food and drinks, given the price and the 7.5 hour flight. I often fly Qatar on this route and there is really NO comparison in standard. Will go back to Qatar (or Emirates) rather than try to save a few EUR with the sub-standard Etihad.

✅ Trip Verified | Rome to Johannesburg via Abu Dhabi. Flew with them in December and back in January. I ordered a special meal when booking the flight as I am gluten intolerant, I checked 2 days prior to the flight to confirm it was on the itinerary which it was and called the day before the flight to confirm. On the flight however it was stated that it was not ordered and I must not have ordered in advance, I explained that I had ordered it several months in advance and confirmed but the impression they gave was that I was not telling the truth. The Senior on board provided me with some fruit and the salad from the meal but no real meal was able to be given. She was very apologetic and took note of it on the system so that on the return I would receive the meal. However on the return the same issue happened, the crew member was far less apologetic and insinuated that I had not booked it properly. I was given only an apple for the flight. I complained and Etihad stated it was a system error, just not sure how the error could have happened twice. Staff should be made aware that system errors happen and should not make assumptions that the issue is on the passengers side. Should possibly have more information of the ingredients (allergen list) in the meals provided so if the error happens you can see if any of the meals on board would be suitable.

✅ Trip Verified | Manchester to Phuket via Abu Dhabi. Do not fly with Etihad. We paid more for the flights with etihad over a lesser-known airline as we wanted to guarantee a seamless journey. Wrong. Firstly, we were sat separately on 3 out of 4 legs of the journey The online check in didn’t work, so we had no choice. 3 our of 4 of my seats did not recline, but the seats in front did. This meant that on each leg of the journey I was cramped up for several hours. I am fairly small, so I can only imagine how frustrating this would be for anyone of a larger stature. Next up, they overbooked the final leg of our flight by over 20+ people and point blank refused to let us on. They rerouted us resulting in a 12 hour wait in Abu Dhabi airport. No hotel. No apology. One extremely rude member of staff dealt with us who was nothing but arrogant about the whole situation. This delay has had major implications on us both financially (kennel for an extra day for 3 dogs and business implications) yet Etihad merely issued us a ‘meal voucher’ which afforded us a soft drink and pack of grapes. Utterly disgraceful. Also, do not be fooled by the ‘luxurious’ lure of this airline: the aircraft are old and uncomfortable. The screens are older than me and on each journey we heard at least 2-3 people near by whose screens didn’t work at all. No chance of changing seat in that case, they overbook each flight, remember!

✅ Trip Verified | Abu Dhabi to Manchester. Don't want to fly Etihad again. On one ticket my husband and I got different seat allocation. Upon requesting in aircraft for seats together, travelling business class the ground staff member jumped into conversation and started aggressively pressuring us to sit separately. The rest is history. Upon reaching Manchester our luggage was sent on another flight. I've emailed Etihad to investigate the matter. They still haven't reverted. In the service industry one doesn't expect such attitude, especially when the airline is adversting themselves presenting a false image. In their next advertisement please show that shouting ground staff member.