Complaints pour in against Etihad Airways

Chennai: A day after DC had reported the agony of passengers waiting for their baggage for two days after travelling from Dublin to Chennai via Abu Dhabi, more air passengers, one of them a kidney patient, poured out their woes flying Etihad Airways from Dublin to Chennai.

Chennai resident Harichandra Rao, 65, a kidney patient who travelled to the US to meet his daughter, had a harrowing experience while he returned by the airline on June 10–11. “Everything was fine till I reached Dublin. From Dublin, I managed to get into Etihad to Abu Dhabi. After reaching Abu Dhabi, my agony began. I was on a wheelchair at the airport. There was very little time to catch the connecting flight and, being wheelchair-bound, I was left behind. They lost track of my luggage, I missed the flight; I did not have enough foreign currency to even buy water. I had to survive without my mandatory dose of medicine,” reminisces Rao, who is running a hotel on Lloyds Road, with a shudder.

Read: Racism at Abu Dhabi International Airport by Etihad Airways staff, Indians livid

S. Suresh, who travelled on the same route on June 6, had an equally unpleasant experience. “On reaching Dublin, we took Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi, and the arrival time at Abu Dhabi was 8 pm so that we can catch the connecting flight operated either by the same operator or Jet Airways which departs at 9.30 pm.

“Though the flight reached the Abu Dhabi airspace at 8.20 pm, it landed around 9 pm and all passengers were made to run through various gates to come up against the closed gate of their departure flight to Chennai. For no fault of ours, we were all stuck at Abu Dhabi,” said Suresh, a resident of Kodambakkam.

Read: Etihad Airways refutes racist slur charge

“When we reached the transfer counters, they were indifferent. They were not bothered to give room even for one hour to make use of a washroom. Please note there were a lot of old people and babies. No one from Etihad came forward to give any solution, except hand over dinner coupons,” he said, adding, that he reached Chennai late by nearly 12 hours.

Etihad Airways station manager at Chennai airport refused to offer comment to DC on the issues faced by the passengers.

Read: Etihad airline misplaces 20 passengers’ luggage

In the meantime, passengers whose luggage was misplaced after they reached Chennai from Abu Dhabi on Saturday, started receiving them on Sunday night.