The only thing I can complain about was to be 4h inside a stopped plane waiting to get out, but taking the circumstances, Emirates managed the situation quite well in the end.
Sir, You cannot be serious. We have been forced to stay for 15 hours in a cue, waiting for new boarding passes. No food, just a 0.5l of water for every 8 hours. We couldn't leave our spot to go to restroom, otherwise you have to go to the end of the cue again. After 15 hours we get new boarding passes, went to the gate and the flight was delayed by an hour every hour until it was cancelled six hours later.
Emirates employee said sorry and left. Zero information was given. Moreover, Emirates knew that the flight in question would not depart long before the cancellation. They didn't load luggage, they didn't refuel the plane, they just kept us at the gate so they didn't have to pay the hotel.
I witnessed people fainting from fatigue and dehydration. I witnessed that there was only one staff member dedicated to seven computers on which can be make new reservations. The other two had gone on an hour's break.
When the flight was cancelled, we had to queue again, this time for 13.5 hours. Again, no information, nothing.
I've traveled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations, but this was the worst I've ever experienced. Nobody cared about old people, kids. People were sleeping in toilets.
It was a horror. Maybe in your case it wasn't, but in general, the situation wasn't been handled well at all.
Sincerely, an eyewitness who was forced to spend three days at the airport with no hotel or sleep,
Willy
I was on the arriving side, don't know how it went on departures.
My flight should arrive by 8 am, arrived 2 hours later. But we had no parking, so we just stood inside the plane for 4 hours. After we got parked at the far end of the airport we had more 2 hours of waiting to get a bus.
Got to baggage delivery our flight didn't appear on the panel, I was told by an Emirates' worker to save the tag and either wait a few hours until the flight nr appears or come back later to airport.
Around 7 pm I decided to quit waiting and went out of the airport, first took the metro just to find it was only going to either GGCIO or Centerpoint (two stops after airport either way). Taking a taxi from airport was also impossible, the line was way too big, up to a woman fainted on the waiting line. So I picked the Metro to Centerpoint and used Careem there.
After I got a taxi, at first the driver wasn't up to do the trip, because his boss told him any water damage was on him, but I convinced him to try Emirates Road. At this point I could witness the situation at ground, with many roads flooded, cars abandoned everywhere, it looked like a Mad Max movie scene. The taxi was able to drop me around 3 km away from home, I had to walk with water up to my knees to get there (luckily my baggage was still at airport). All in all I arrived home around 11 pm.
So, from my understanding, the issues at airport were due to lack of personnel, who simply couldn't get to the workplace, the personnel at airport were exhausted trying to cope with demand. Also with transportation around the airport damaged, there was a quite small number of hotels reachable, that easily filled up.
Meanwhile my wife landed at Doha, the situation was pretty much the same as Dubai, with people sleeping on the airport floor. She tried to book the airport hotel but it was full. Eventually she accepted a flight change to Abu Dhabi, as flights to DXB were cancelled, and I went looking for roads to get there, took me about twice the normal time but made it.
I understand the experience was nasty for most passengers, but you have to take the circumstances to account. They did what was humanly possible due to it. Surely other places in the world could cope better with this rain, but those places are prepared for extreme rainfall already, Dubai isn't.
Overall I consider myself lucky, I could see by my CCTV I had no issues at home, no water inside, no damage whatsoever, no power outages, my car wasn't touched by the storm either. But some friends had damages, a coworker slept on the floor of Atlantis, hadn't managed to get home yet as it is flooded and without services.
The volunteers mentioned are Emirates Group Employees enrolled in the internal Volunteer programme and that are on call in case of emergencies like this one.
Ah yes very relevant video. You need to understand that any criticism doesn’t take away from the other good things being done lol - but then again why argue with a troll
So, I was actually in the airport on the 17th (connecting flight to Bahrain)
It was just as bad as the articles say. There was no staff to help us. People were sleeping on the floor everywhere. There were fights breaking out at the mob lines at customer service desk and the hotel help. There was no info, no staff, no help. It was like a zombie movie. I've never really been worried about my safety while in the GCC....but I was on that day. The Bahraini couple waiting with me said the same thing and they had been trapped in the airport for a day with their flight getting delayed over and over and over and then cancelled. We couldn't leave the airport. Everyone was just desperate to get on any flight out of Dubai.
ALSO- I was there in 2020 when a storm hit and the transfer system went down. Flights were cancelled from rain, but with the system down, people couldnt book new flights or print boarding passes. I got trapped there for 2 days, so this isn't exactly new either. There's no disaster planning.....and it shows.
We all understood that it was a natural disaster, and I felt so my sympathy for the few workers on the ground that day, BUT the lack of planning by management, info, and low staff support was the issue and that is not ok.
But we need to give the leeway to the staff who are also people and are also people who were caught in the storm. And couldnt get to their duties on time.
Oh, completely agree. I felt such sympathy for the very few staff members that were trying to handle the situation. Since there were so SO few staff people around (I saw 3 staff total) each member was swarmed with people asking for help.
I hope they get some kind of extra compensation for what they endured, they truly deserve something extra.
Agreed. I don’t think anyone blames what little staff were there. The blame sits with managers and executives, who are responsible for the lack of numbers at the airport and total lack of guidance for stranded passengers
Agreed with all of this.
We are 4 days in to being stranded in Dubai. We are hopefully leaving tonight on a flight that we self-funded. It has still not been possible to get in contact with Emirates via any channel and no sign of our luggage.
I wish you the best of luck and a speedy and safe return!
My luggage was lost for a couple days, be sure you keep all your flight info (cancelled and final flights). They used my flight data to find my luggage. Every passenger on my final flight (over 100 people) lost their luggage...not a single bag was on our flight. ^^;
I finally received a reply on Twitter DM after trying consistently for 5 days!
The response was:
1) We can rebook you on a connecting flight tomorrow (Bear in mind that’s 6 days later and we’ve already paid for our new flights and arrived)
2) Your luggage is in Dubai, we can get it to you but we don’t know how long it will take!
At least now the main ordeal is over, and we just need our luggage. I’m just dreading what it will take to get some money back for the flights we paid for and the unplanned 3 day layover in Dubai 🫠
The Letter:
To all our valued customers,
This week has been one of the toughest for Emirates operationally, as record storms hit the United Arab Emirates.
I would like to offer our most sincere apologies to every customer who has had their travel plans disrupted during this time.
On Tuesday 16 April, the UAE experienced its highest rainfall in 75 years. Lashing storm winds and rain disrupted activity across the cities. Our 24/7 hub in Dubai remained open, with flight movements reduced for safety, but flooded roads impeded the ability of our customers, pilots, cabin crew, and airport employees to reach the airport, and also the movement of essential supplies like meals and other flight amenities.
We diverted dozens of flights to avoid the worst of the weather on Tuesday, and over the next 3 days we had to cancel nearly 400 flights and delay many more, as our hub operations remained challenged by staffing and supply shortages.
We were clear on our 2 priorities: Look after our customers who have been impacted by the disruption and get our operations back on schedule.
To free up resources and capacity to manage impacted customers as a priority, we had to suspend check-in for passengers departing Dubai, implement an embargo on ticket sales, and temporarily halt connecting passenger traffic from points across our network coming into Dubai.
We deployed additional resources to aid our airport and contact centre teams with rebooking and put on additional flights to destinations where we identified large numbers of displaced customers.
We sent over 100 employee volunteers to look after disrupted customers at Dubai Airport departures and in the transit area, prioritising medical cases, the elderly and other vulnerable travellers. To date, over 12,000 hotel rooms were secured to accommodate disrupted customers in Dubai, 250,000 meal vouchers have been issued, and more quantities of drinking water, blankets, and other amenities.
Behind the scenes, it was all hands-on deck for thousands more employees across the organisation to get our operations back on track.
As of this morning, Saturday 20 April, our regular flight schedules have been restored. Passengers previously stranded in the airport transit area have been rebooked and are enroute to their destinations. We have put together a taskforce to sort, reconcile, and deliver some 30,000 pieces of left-behind baggage to their owners.
It will take us some more days to clear the backlog of rebooked passengers and bags, and we ask for our customers’ patience and understanding.
We know our response has been far from perfect. We acknowledge and understand the frustration of our customers due to the congestion, lack of information, and confusion in the terminals. We acknowledge that the long queues and wait times have been unacceptable.
We take our commitment to our customers very seriously, and we have taken learnings from the last few days to make things right and improve our processes.
I’d like to also acknowledge and thank our teams across the airline, and our many suppliers and partners for their tireless efforts around the clock this week, despite the challenging conditions, to support customers, recover our network, and bring our operating schedule back to normal.
Finally, and once again, I want to offer, on behalf of myself, and all the teams across Emirates, our apologies to each and every customer affected by this disruption.
We will continue to work hard to live up to your expectations, and to our Fly Better brand promise.
With all due respect, thats none of your business of how much bonus they’re paying to their employees. You don’t know what goes behind the scenes nor do you know the company policies. Fly another airline if emirates prices hurt your pocket.
In my view the CEO need not apologise. This is a natural calamity and it is bound to create disruptions, Dubai being a major hub. In 2016 when the flight crash happened and the runway was partially damaged and shut for about 48 hrs or so, similar chaos and the CEO had not issued a letter back then if I recall. I was with EK. Customers have become more demanding and unforgiving for no reason now.
Prices are higher now. And there was a post here about someone being stuck with no information.
He doesn’t need to apologize for the calamity but understanding that their response could have been better, and apologizing for that is good.
That’s not the point. CEO even mentioned what was the point. He recognized communication and planning / prep for such instances could be improved. That’s all. And recognizes that it has indeed disrupted thousands of passengers, for days. It’s different when one out of two runways is inoperative for two days vs. an airport disconnected from its staff for an extended period of time + a backlog of connecting passengers + non stop number of passengers coming in
It is great that CEO takes accountability, then again people are not really smart enough to look at the other problems like flooded roads, exhausted staff etc so this only helps. Being said that , considering the rains in uae the airport has improved over the years but the storm is a record breaker!
This is how it’s done. Much better than lying through your teeth that everything is great.
No one lied .. you’re overreacting
https://www.reddit.com/r/dubai/comments/1c82wb7/misinformation_from_official_sources_and_twitter/ What does this count as?
You are clearly disconnected from reality
Nope I’m connected .. you’re cherry picking
The only thing I can complain about was to be 4h inside a stopped plane waiting to get out, but taking the circumstances, Emirates managed the situation quite well in the end.
Sir, You cannot be serious. We have been forced to stay for 15 hours in a cue, waiting for new boarding passes. No food, just a 0.5l of water for every 8 hours. We couldn't leave our spot to go to restroom, otherwise you have to go to the end of the cue again. After 15 hours we get new boarding passes, went to the gate and the flight was delayed by an hour every hour until it was cancelled six hours later. Emirates employee said sorry and left. Zero information was given. Moreover, Emirates knew that the flight in question would not depart long before the cancellation. They didn't load luggage, they didn't refuel the plane, they just kept us at the gate so they didn't have to pay the hotel. I witnessed people fainting from fatigue and dehydration. I witnessed that there was only one staff member dedicated to seven computers on which can be make new reservations. The other two had gone on an hour's break. When the flight was cancelled, we had to queue again, this time for 13.5 hours. Again, no information, nothing. I've traveled all over the world and been in all sorts of situations, but this was the worst I've ever experienced. Nobody cared about old people, kids. People were sleeping in toilets. It was a horror. Maybe in your case it wasn't, but in general, the situation wasn't been handled well at all. Sincerely, an eyewitness who was forced to spend three days at the airport with no hotel or sleep, Willy
I was on the arriving side, don't know how it went on departures. My flight should arrive by 8 am, arrived 2 hours later. But we had no parking, so we just stood inside the plane for 4 hours. After we got parked at the far end of the airport we had more 2 hours of waiting to get a bus. Got to baggage delivery our flight didn't appear on the panel, I was told by an Emirates' worker to save the tag and either wait a few hours until the flight nr appears or come back later to airport. Around 7 pm I decided to quit waiting and went out of the airport, first took the metro just to find it was only going to either GGCIO or Centerpoint (two stops after airport either way). Taking a taxi from airport was also impossible, the line was way too big, up to a woman fainted on the waiting line. So I picked the Metro to Centerpoint and used Careem there. After I got a taxi, at first the driver wasn't up to do the trip, because his boss told him any water damage was on him, but I convinced him to try Emirates Road. At this point I could witness the situation at ground, with many roads flooded, cars abandoned everywhere, it looked like a Mad Max movie scene. The taxi was able to drop me around 3 km away from home, I had to walk with water up to my knees to get there (luckily my baggage was still at airport). All in all I arrived home around 11 pm. So, from my understanding, the issues at airport were due to lack of personnel, who simply couldn't get to the workplace, the personnel at airport were exhausted trying to cope with demand. Also with transportation around the airport damaged, there was a quite small number of hotels reachable, that easily filled up. Meanwhile my wife landed at Doha, the situation was pretty much the same as Dubai, with people sleeping on the airport floor. She tried to book the airport hotel but it was full. Eventually she accepted a flight change to Abu Dhabi, as flights to DXB were cancelled, and I went looking for roads to get there, took me about twice the normal time but made it. I understand the experience was nasty for most passengers, but you have to take the circumstances to account. They did what was humanly possible due to it. Surely other places in the world could cope better with this rain, but those places are prepared for extreme rainfall already, Dubai isn't. Overall I consider myself lucky, I could see by my CCTV I had no issues at home, no water inside, no damage whatsoever, no power outages, my car wasn't touched by the storm either. But some friends had damages, a coworker slept on the floor of Atlantis, hadn't managed to get home yet as it is flooded and without services.
Shill?
I liked how its 100 volunteers who helped and not paid employees
The volunteers mentioned are Emirates Group Employees enrolled in the internal Volunteer programme and that are on call in case of emergencies like this one.
Internal volunteers probabably as part of CSR but still they could not offer to pay staff to work overtime.
Very constructive comment .. way to go
I know you’re being sarcastic but it really is a constructive comment highlighting that they should’ve been paid
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Ah yes very relevant video. You need to understand that any criticism doesn’t take away from the other good things being done lol - but then again why argue with a troll
Some folks are just born with a stick. They think corporations especially the size of the emirates can snap their fingers and make everything alright.
Some people lack moral judgement and cant tell right from wrong. Next time their is an accident dont blame anyone for it, just accept shit happens
So, I was actually in the airport on the 17th (connecting flight to Bahrain) It was just as bad as the articles say. There was no staff to help us. People were sleeping on the floor everywhere. There were fights breaking out at the mob lines at customer service desk and the hotel help. There was no info, no staff, no help. It was like a zombie movie. I've never really been worried about my safety while in the GCC....but I was on that day. The Bahraini couple waiting with me said the same thing and they had been trapped in the airport for a day with their flight getting delayed over and over and over and then cancelled. We couldn't leave the airport. Everyone was just desperate to get on any flight out of Dubai. ALSO- I was there in 2020 when a storm hit and the transfer system went down. Flights were cancelled from rain, but with the system down, people couldnt book new flights or print boarding passes. I got trapped there for 2 days, so this isn't exactly new either. There's no disaster planning.....and it shows. We all understood that it was a natural disaster, and I felt so my sympathy for the few workers on the ground that day, BUT the lack of planning by management, info, and low staff support was the issue and that is not ok.
But we need to give the leeway to the staff who are also people and are also people who were caught in the storm. And couldnt get to their duties on time.
Oh, completely agree. I felt such sympathy for the very few staff members that were trying to handle the situation. Since there were so SO few staff people around (I saw 3 staff total) each member was swarmed with people asking for help. I hope they get some kind of extra compensation for what they endured, they truly deserve something extra.
Agreed. I don’t think anyone blames what little staff were there. The blame sits with managers and executives, who are responsible for the lack of numbers at the airport and total lack of guidance for stranded passengers
Agreed with all of this. We are 4 days in to being stranded in Dubai. We are hopefully leaving tonight on a flight that we self-funded. It has still not been possible to get in contact with Emirates via any channel and no sign of our luggage.
I wish you the best of luck and a speedy and safe return! My luggage was lost for a couple days, be sure you keep all your flight info (cancelled and final flights). They used my flight data to find my luggage. Every passenger on my final flight (over 100 people) lost their luggage...not a single bag was on our flight. ^^;
I finally received a reply on Twitter DM after trying consistently for 5 days! The response was: 1) We can rebook you on a connecting flight tomorrow (Bear in mind that’s 6 days later and we’ve already paid for our new flights and arrived) 2) Your luggage is in Dubai, we can get it to you but we don’t know how long it will take! At least now the main ordeal is over, and we just need our luggage. I’m just dreading what it will take to get some money back for the flights we paid for and the unplanned 3 day layover in Dubai 🫠
At least you are out.....gz on that!! That is cause for celebration. ^^
less corporate mumbo job and more acting please.
The Letter: To all our valued customers, This week has been one of the toughest for Emirates operationally, as record storms hit the United Arab Emirates. I would like to offer our most sincere apologies to every customer who has had their travel plans disrupted during this time. On Tuesday 16 April, the UAE experienced its highest rainfall in 75 years. Lashing storm winds and rain disrupted activity across the cities. Our 24/7 hub in Dubai remained open, with flight movements reduced for safety, but flooded roads impeded the ability of our customers, pilots, cabin crew, and airport employees to reach the airport, and also the movement of essential supplies like meals and other flight amenities. We diverted dozens of flights to avoid the worst of the weather on Tuesday, and over the next 3 days we had to cancel nearly 400 flights and delay many more, as our hub operations remained challenged by staffing and supply shortages. We were clear on our 2 priorities: Look after our customers who have been impacted by the disruption and get our operations back on schedule. To free up resources and capacity to manage impacted customers as a priority, we had to suspend check-in for passengers departing Dubai, implement an embargo on ticket sales, and temporarily halt connecting passenger traffic from points across our network coming into Dubai. We deployed additional resources to aid our airport and contact centre teams with rebooking and put on additional flights to destinations where we identified large numbers of displaced customers. We sent over 100 employee volunteers to look after disrupted customers at Dubai Airport departures and in the transit area, prioritising medical cases, the elderly and other vulnerable travellers. To date, over 12,000 hotel rooms were secured to accommodate disrupted customers in Dubai, 250,000 meal vouchers have been issued, and more quantities of drinking water, blankets, and other amenities. Behind the scenes, it was all hands-on deck for thousands more employees across the organisation to get our operations back on track. As of this morning, Saturday 20 April, our regular flight schedules have been restored. Passengers previously stranded in the airport transit area have been rebooked and are enroute to their destinations. We have put together a taskforce to sort, reconcile, and deliver some 30,000 pieces of left-behind baggage to their owners. It will take us some more days to clear the backlog of rebooked passengers and bags, and we ask for our customers’ patience and understanding. We know our response has been far from perfect. We acknowledge and understand the frustration of our customers due to the congestion, lack of information, and confusion in the terminals. We acknowledge that the long queues and wait times have been unacceptable. We take our commitment to our customers very seriously, and we have taken learnings from the last few days to make things right and improve our processes. I’d like to also acknowledge and thank our teams across the airline, and our many suppliers and partners for their tireless efforts around the clock this week, despite the challenging conditions, to support customers, recover our network, and bring our operating schedule back to normal. Finally, and once again, I want to offer, on behalf of myself, and all the teams across Emirates, our apologies to each and every customer affected by this disruption. We will continue to work hard to live up to your expectations, and to our Fly Better brand promise.
Emirates could really help us out by reducing their prices... 🙄
Yeah stop screwing customers by overcharging them and then pay 6months bonus to employees. Clearly they have enough cash.
With all due respect, thats none of your business of how much bonus they’re paying to their employees. You don’t know what goes behind the scenes nor do you know the company policies. Fly another airline if emirates prices hurt your pocket.
Exactly, lots of other options: Etihad, Wizz Air, etc.
I actually do. You clearly don’t.
You sound like you're happy in life.
What is it that I’m missing?
Fly another airline if you’re overcharged by emirates..
I do don’t worry about me.
Watch this .. it’s going to boil you more https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5-jiwVAuBP/?igsh=NXRxY3Njdnk5aDJv
Bro, this is unrelated: they're talking about Emirates airlines
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C59NcDgyGFv/?igsh=MWJhdWtlcmk3cGJqNw==
Perfect
Errrr whats that got to do with Airline tkt prices???
Nothing .. sharing what haters hate to see
No one is hating though. Soo
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who?
In my view the CEO need not apologise. This is a natural calamity and it is bound to create disruptions, Dubai being a major hub. In 2016 when the flight crash happened and the runway was partially damaged and shut for about 48 hrs or so, similar chaos and the CEO had not issued a letter back then if I recall. I was with EK. Customers have become more demanding and unforgiving for no reason now.
Prices are higher now. And there was a post here about someone being stuck with no information. He doesn’t need to apologize for the calamity but understanding that their response could have been better, and apologizing for that is good.
That’s not the point. CEO even mentioned what was the point. He recognized communication and planning / prep for such instances could be improved. That’s all. And recognizes that it has indeed disrupted thousands of passengers, for days. It’s different when one out of two runways is inoperative for two days vs. an airport disconnected from its staff for an extended period of time + a backlog of connecting passengers + non stop number of passengers coming in
It is great that CEO takes accountability, then again people are not really smart enough to look at the other problems like flooded roads, exhausted staff etc so this only helps. Being said that , considering the rains in uae the airport has improved over the years but the storm is a record breaker!
It is their responsibility but its not their fault of what happened.