Emirates cancels flight 5 days before departure with no compensation – thanks @emirates
Holidays should be the best time of the year – in theory. I was looking forward to it very much as finally I will meet Raja Ampat – dream for every diver. Everything is booked. Dive safari, flights, hotels and so on. We certainly didn’t think that a reliable airline like Emirates would put a dent into our anticipation.
Going to Raja Ampat is not that easy. Our journey starts from Cairo and we travel via Dubai to Jakarta / Indonesia. From there we have another longer flight to Sorong and will go on the boat. Well we hope we do.
Emirates cancels flight 5 days before departure
Departure date was supposed to be the 24. November 2017. On the 19. we get an email from the travel agency that our flight has been cancelled 5 days before departure but we could take the same flight 1 day earlier. In theory that is fine as the major thing is not to miss the boat. But 5 days is a ridiculous short notice.
We needed to change a flight to Cairo and had to book a hotel in Jakarta. Contacting Emirates directly if they compensate the costs ended in the typical “no we are sorry but we can fully refund your ticket“.
Really? Did you at Emirates support even read what I told them. I have no choice otherwise I miss the dive safari that I was looking forward to until I started diving!
But it is not my fault that Emirates cancels a flight due to operational reasons and at least I expect the extra costs are compensated accordingly. But Emirates does not seem to care. All Emirates does is apologizing for any inconvenience, sending links to their terms and services and offer a one time ticket change or a full refund. With the latter I basically would loose a 4 week holiday in South-East Asia plus the dive safari in Raja Ampat.
Emirates answer on Facebook: Tough luck – because we can!
The support companies like Emirates are running these days are basically apologizing machines. They are in place to tell the customer Stop crying you have no choice anyway in a polite way. To offer a full refund might be legally correct but they know exactly when our return flight is and know even better that they ruin our full holiday. So in reality they don’t give you a choice but force feeding you another schedule if you like it or not. The extra time and costs – well Tough luck but we are legally allowed to do this!
If you fly to or from an EU country or with an airline registered within the EU you are actually quite lucky. The customer has far more rights in this situation. An airline has to give you notice 14 days upfront otherwise you can get compensation. In our case we get nothing. Emirates did exactly what I mentioned already: Tough luck and here is a link to our terms and conditions! In a polite way this boils down to: Take our offer or not and fuck off!
But Emirates might violate international law. The Montreal Convention says they have to compensate for flight and travel disruption and additional expenses. My departure and destination are Egypt and Indonesia and they are both members (PDF) … I will look into this when I am back and have time. You can file a complaint within 2 years as far as I understand.
Customer is king is a thing of the past
As a customer you are not king anymore. You are a walking wallet that can be bullied around like the companies want. I had my fair amount of fun with Vodafone that thought the can send me daily spam to offer me the same thing over and over. It took several weeks and many many complaints to stop them sending me spam messages and unwanted offers. You should think as a customer it should be enough to tell them once.
You would also think that if an airline with a very good reputation like Emirates cancels your flight 5 days before departure they compensate you for the inconvenience or trouble they cause. But Emirates doesn’t care – so easy to apologize and hey: Tough luck walking wallet – deal with it – not our problem as we as Emirates cancel your flight 5 days before departure.
Having a statement like this on their Facebook page seems like a sick joke: Don’t you think you deserve a little more than just customer service? Good, so do we. – Great, Emirates! It basically translates into We can do it and now shut up and deal with it! That would be appropriate.
Don’t you think you deserve a little more than just customer service? Good, so do we. – Great, Emirates! Why don’t you stick to it?
We are actually lucky. If you read something like this and they basically got the Deal with it attitude. The woman is claiming that Emirates killed one of their dogs.
Emirates allegedly killed a dog
Support gets worse
After running around all day it basically cost us roughly 150 Euro to change connecting flights and 1 night in a hotel in Jakarta. But Emirates did not even bother to confirm that we are on the new flight. I asked on Twitter for confirmation – silence. On Facebook? Silence. In the end we tried to call customer support. Tried is correct because we were thrown out the line multiple times. Finally we get the confirmation that we are booked on the new flight and customer service (phone) sent us new tickets.
Basically we lost 1 day of rearranging the start of the holidays and more than 150 Euro as calls are also not for free. Well done, Emirates! It really makes me wonder how you got rated best airline in the world. In my eyes – so not deserved.
If you read something like this (at the end) you really think Emirates is mocking you. They are sorry that I remain disappointed! – Strange, isn’t it? How comes? They cancel the flight 5 days before departure – leave me with an extra bill of 150 Euro and a day of full on stress to reorganize everything and cannot understand that I’m still pissed off!
Shiny wrapper around an awful customer care
They all do it and try to get away with it
But Emirates is not the only company. The worst thing is that you get treated like this and pushed around anywhere these days now. The companies try and to my knowledge too many people swallow the bitter pill. That basically means Emirates and the like win and will do things like this over and over again. Why? Because they can if you let them! And quite often you don’t have a choice. Well I had – take the other flight or loose you complete holiday. At least I can communicate how we were treated and everyone can make their own choice to fly with them or not.
Be careful who you are booking with. I never thought a airline with a reputation like Emirates will let you down this bad. In advertisements they make you think the are the best, glamorous airline out there. In reality they treat you not better than any other airline with a bad reputation. They have just a nicer wrapper around them. But the bottom line is that you cannot rely on anybody anymore – not even an airline with a reputation like Emirates.
Thanks to Emirates they holiday already starts with a disappointment. Just for the record again: I don’t mind going a day earlier and running around changing flights and booking hotels even that wastes my time. What I expect from an airline like Emirates: If they cancel your flight 5 days before departure – at least they should offer you some compensation and cover the extra costs.
Btw.: If you as a customer do something like cancel 5 days before departure you most probably loose all your money. If an airline does it – they offer you a refund but ruin a complete holiday without any further punishment.
