Etihad Airways
reviews and complaints

After having travelled with Etihad on a few occasions both myself and the party of 5 others feel this airline’s service has declined. We travelled to Abu Dhabi on the 21:55 flight on 8th September & returned to Heathrow on the 14:15 flight on the 19th. On both flights the food offered was very disappointing (especially if you do not like rice) I know the food is classed as complimentary however there is no option to purchase any other food on the flight.

Our biggest disappointment was with the service and attitude of the cabin crew on our return flight. The aircraft was very hot, we kept being told the air con would kick in, it never did. I became over heated and feeling like I was going to pass out (I have never passed out in my life) finding this all quite scary I ended up having a panic attack. The cabin crew suggested I went to the toilet, my legs were like jelly if I’d have got up I would have ended up on the floor. They then gave my husband some ice and some paper towels to try cool me down. I did cool down for a period of time but the air con still wasn’t working. I could feel myself overheating again so called the assistance button, I asked for more ice only to be told they didn’t have any, I asked for an ice-pack thinking they must have these in their first aid kits? I was told all they could do was give me water. The female cabin crew I was talking to did not care at all. She then brought a litre bottle of water and a handful of paper towels. I wasn’t sure if I should be trying to pour the water over the tissues whilst sat in my seat or just pour the water over my head as at this point I felt this was the only way I was going to cool down.

There were others on the flight complaining about how hot it was too.

Another member of our party also became unwell through being to hot, again no one seemed to care.

Our original booking also stated we would be flying on an airbus, this was changed to a much smaller aircraft and one with broken air con.

Very disappointing end to our holiday.

Date of Incident

Sunday 11th of September 2022 ,

I was flying from Dublin to Abu Dhabi on EY 42, Booking Reference SVZJOU ,

I was flying Business Class, I checked two bags in Dublin airport, A large grey suitcase and a smaller Pink case.

On arrival home in Abu Dhabi , when I opened my small suitcase, firstly I noticed the inside compartment had been opened and the contents had been disturbed, on closer inspection , two handbags and my kindle were missing

1 Handbag was a black velvet Gucci clutch and the other handbag was a brown Loui Viton cross body bag with a distinctive pink strap.

I have been a frequent business class flyer for almost 8 yrs and have never had any issues before, I am extremely upset and disappointed this has happened .

My Etihad guest number is [protected]

Hi,

When my Daughter get the acceptance in Manchester University (Tamara is 17 years old) I didn't think twice and my first choice is to pick Etihad Airline as 1st option due to accuracy, safety and an airline that care about customer satisfaction so I booked a ticket to Manchester UK through Munich due to unavailability of direct flight (on September 1,2022 for flight EY5, LH2500, September 11,2022), also I immediately reached out to Etihad call center to check and validate if she needs a transit visa in Munich (they confirmed back and assured us that NO need for such visa as long as my Daughter "Tamara" will stay in the transit area and will not leave the airport so we confirmed all her travel details based on that.

Yesterday we walked into the check in desk and after keeping us waiting for more than 30 min without telling us what was going on, your Etihad;s employee came back to us and said ; I cannot make her fly! she has no transit visa in Munch and we were shocked and surprised with this statement about visa to pass by Munich Airport and we confirmed to her that we already checked that with Etihad call center last week she simply said 'this is new requirements' do you think this is professional way to justify this massive change to us 3 hrs before her flight? How is it possible that nobody sends us an email or call before the flight to highlight this dramatic change?

Your employees simply said no fly for her or you can go Etihad counter to buy a new ticket and should be direct to Manchester, I had to pay an extra fees 2365 AED (EY15) to collect the new ticket and put us all in stressful mood also this change impacted her pick up car (already we paid 45 GBP UK pound) from Manchester UK which was at 10:00 am on Sunday morning from Terminal 1 to her accommodation while the new ticket at 7:25 am morning on Sunday morning - Terminal 2.

Note :Due to all of the above I'm claiming this issue and how you will compensate for all of these the extra payments and the mis planning that caused us a full 24 hours stress and till this minutes my Daughter couldn't leave the airport to her accommodation,

(changed ticket and extra payment and waiting in the airport in Abu Dhabi and Manchester especially on Sunday nobody answers in her accommodation to reach immediately)

awaiting your positive answer as soon as possible.

Note: attached the 2 tickets paid by us during this trip

My Airmiles (kamal Khalil) : : [protected]

My daughter Airmiles (Tamara Khalil) : [protected]

Please find attached the 2 tickets booked from Etihad for the same date.

Kamal N. Khalil

MOBILE : [protected]

Email : [protected]@gmail.com

I was 5 mins late to check-in for my flight 11-09-22 DOH-AUH - a route I take every month. Etihad staff told me they couldn't let me board and to call the Etihad helpline to rebook for no cost. Fair enough. But I have called NINE times already, with each call center rep promises me that the airport will respond to the email they sent them to confimr that I'm NOT a No Show. Each time I call they tell me to call 1 hour later. Most lied about their names and we're extremely rude. Twice I was told that a supervisor would call me but nothing.

Firstly, what kind of system is this that you need to wait for an email from a team/inbox that CLEARLY isn't responding? Phone? Executive decision making? Am I supposed to wait for 2 days, a week? With my visa expiring today and plans ruined. Am I supposed to keep calling every hour and waste money calling international? No responibility whatsoever as Etihad has outsourced 'helpline' to rubbish second rate call centers in India.

This is how Etihad treats loyal customers of 14 years. Earlier, they had cancelled my return flight and rebooked another for an inopportune time. I did not complain.

But Etihad can do what it wants when it wants, but the customer cannot be helped when they need help? I never experienced this with Qatar Airways once. They are a far better airline all round.

This is about my recent flight booking with Etihad Airways.

Flight from munich to mumbai and return from mumbai to munich.

Reference: ADSMSK

The flight from Munich to mumbai was perfect without much trouble. But my return flight from Mumbai to Munich was on 24th august 2022 around 19:55.

One day before departure (23rd August) i recieve a mail from Etihad that my flight got cancelled but they provide me another flight on 25th morning with TURKISH AIRLINES.

This was already a bad news for me because i had important meeting to attend on 25th which i couldnt because of the flight delay or change.

Secondly i made a booking with ETIHAD for a reason because i like the service they provide and there is a reason why i didnt want to travel with other airline such as turkish airline in this case.

My fear came true when i got on board with turkish airlines because i had one of my worst flying experience with Turkish airlines.

The crew couldnt speak English or didnt understand me, Also not very friendly or helpful.

I had to stay hungry during the flight because the crew told me that they dont have any vegetarian/ vegan food on board. i was asked if i prebooked it, my response was i booked flight via etihad and i have my preference saved there so it should be their responsibility to notify you when they book me with other airline without my permission. As a result i had to starve on my entire flight duration.

And how bad is it when you dont have enough eating option on board. This feels like me being vegan/vegetarian is my problem and have to suffer even after paying tons of money.

I dont know if i should blame turkish airlines or Etihad because i would have never booked myself on turkish airline and now i am considering to not book myself on Etihad as well because this is just not working. They charge you so much and then fail to provide you the service you paid for. The worst part is Etihad did not even care to ask for a feedback afterwards. Really dissapointed by choosing Etihad. Hope my problem is heard and a solution is provided or else i would have to warn my friends and family about the Airlines so they dont make the same mistake i did.

Thank You.

Jay Shah

Paid for seats we had booked were changed without us knowing.Food was disappointing on return flight waited over 2hours for a drink flight was delayed at Athens for over 1Hour because of incompetent staff which left us less than 20mins to catch our connecting flight my wife and I were both dehydrated from lack of water and hungry because food was disgusting plane was noisy which gave us both a headache when we finally landed at Sydney were not feeling well this was the worst flight we have ever experienced will never fly with Etihad again

We had tickets to fly out of Brisbane to Europe in April 2020, however these flights were cancelled by Etihad due to Covid-19. Etihad then transferred the costs of our flights into a travel bank (which can only be used to book flights with Etihad). I then found out that Etihad no longer flies in and out of Brisbane, therefore I cannot use the travel bank credit to book flights overseas. I should not have to/can't afford to fly to Sydney or Melbourne first to then go overseas. Therefore I requested a refund from Etihad on the 10th of May 2022. After following them up numerous times by phone and email, they finally responded to my request on the 28th of June 2022 saying that the refund had already been done. I took this to mean that they were going to refund the credit to my credit card (which I used to purchase the tickets). After not receiving the money back, I followed them up again by email on the 1st of September 2022 asking for an update on my refund. They once again responded saying that it had already been refunded. I realised that they meant it had been refunded to my travel bank as a credit (which is what they initially did in 2020). This is unacceptable, all I want it my money back which I believe is fair as they can't provide me with the same product as what I originally purchased (to be able to fly in and out of Brisbane). I believe I have a right to my money back and that it would be fair and reasonable for Etihad to give me a refund of the money I paid to my credit card.

Dear Etihad.

Almost 2 years ago I booked an Etihad flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam, with a lay-over in Abu Dhabi. This was during a time where South-East Asia was in the beginning stages of Covid-19.

The situation was as follows. The flight date was on the 31st of July and on the day of departure we got the information that from August onwards anyone travelling in or through Abu Dhabi would need a PCR test. However, since Etihad provided this information too late, we weren't in the position to do this test AND get the result in time. We arrived at the airport with a paper that we did a test, but we without the result (which back then took 24 hours to get).

So ultimately we were denied boarding, together with many others.

After this incident we wanted to apply for a refund. After trying to find information about cancellations due to covid, which were less available at the time than now, I decided to give you guys a call on your customer service hotline. Once I got through I explained my situation and tried to apply for a refund. Your Customer Service told me that instead of being able to get the refund immediately I could put it in the Travel Bank and get the cash back after a year. Up to this day I still haven't seen any of that money come back into my account. I was told this was because of Covid.

I just checked my Etihad account and now I see the balance is still in my account, but with an expiration date of September this year. To make matters worse, I read that it seems that Travel bank balances are non-refundable? Please explain why that is and why a person would ever decide to choose to put a possible refund into a travel bank account (especially during Covid, when flying is nearly impossible).

At this moment I live in China and you may or may not know that flying/leaving from China is nearly impossible and will probably stay like this untill 2024... when my balance is expired. So even if I would like to use the balance I can't...

Is there anything you guys can do with either a refund or an extension. Let it be clear that from the first action (the notice that we needed a PCR test), there has been an (understandable) incompetence on the side of Etihad that has resulted into this issue. With new rules and regulations each day we can all understand that people make mistakes, but in the end I think the (financial) consequences of these actions should be beared Etihad and not by its customers.

I am looking forward to your response.

My flight was cancelled by Etihad Airways regarding I don't have a visa transit In Mumbai, Travel Agent should let their customer know about it before or after we book the tickets. It was not a customer fault regarding this issue, My departure flight on 30th of juli 2022 and returned on 13th of August 2022. In this situation I cannot contact Travel agents (Opodo) cause I don't have a booking confirmation from Opodo, Cause Opodo not sent me a booking reference or booking confirmation after I booked the tickets.

What I do Is I have contacted with a Solicitor regarding this issue. Please Etihad Could you Contact Opodo about what happened to me. I have been contact Opodo like 100 times but always spoke with robot cause they need a booking reference number to speak with an agent. I'm looking forward to hear from you.

Many thanks

Domingos Savio Manuel caetano Freitas

Dear Sir,

I wrote to you over 28 days ago but did not receive any response.

My flight from Newcastle (06:05 on 29th June 2022, KL952) to Sydney was cancelled and my wife and I had to catch an Emirates flight over 12 hours later (20:25 Flight EKO 34) on the same day.

As the flight left Newcastle at 6.05 am and required a 4.00 am check in we had booked into an airport hotel the night before so that we could have a night's sleep before our long journey.

I had paid to book seats on my original flight to Australia. Of course on the Emirates flight my seat bookings did not work. I could not sit with my wife - nor did I have an isle seat.

My wife and I are vegetarians and of course Emirates did not have vegetarian meals for us. They did their best and we got spare crackers and bananas.

I asked for disabled assistance and of course Emirates was unable to provide it not having been informed.

Etihad did not provide any assistance during the delay, did not pay for any food or entry to a 1st class lounge.

All in all it was the most unpleasant flight of my life.

Hello,

I booked a one-way flight in Etihad on 9th April 2020 with Booking Reference: XCAURN and Ticket number [protected] for 4th May 2020 from Kolkata to Manchester. The flight got cancelled three times 4th May, 17th May, and 2nd June 2020. Upon calling your customer service, they mentioned that I can carry forward the balance and miles and can travel any time till January 2022. I opted that as they were not giving me full refund. The offer and balance are now expiring, and I do not have any place to travel with that since flight is not there to Kolkata yet. Since the COVID situation is not fully recovered yet, we are unsure about travel in distant future and cannot use mileage. It is imperative to say that it is not a fault at our end that we could not use your offer. I, therefore, kindly request you to refund my ticket money. The money (GBP 357.18) is there in my Etihad guest account and they said that it is going to expire soon.

I have travelled on Etihad on 10 Aug from Mumbai to Chicago. My baggage got delayed by 12 days and after I received my bag it was damaged all over the place and was beyond repair. I have raised claim for baggage delay compensation and baggage damage but there is no response even after 12 days of continuous follow-up.

Traveler name - Prathamesh Sonawane

TICKET NUMBER - [protected]

PIR for delayed Bag - ORDEY15418

Email ID - [protected]@gmail.com, k.[protected]@gmail.com

1. Damage claim case number - [protected] (Claim raised on 23 Aug'22)

2. Delayed baggage claim case number - [protected] (Claim raised on 18

Aug'22)

I booked my return flight with Etihad on 7 Aug 2022 CHC-SYD-Abu-Dhabi- SVO.

On my way back Qantas did last sector for Etihad. It was 2 h between my flights in Sydney Airport when my baggage suppose to be transferred from Etihad EY454 to Qantas QF139. I passed through a transit zone in Sydney airport as soon as I could to the Qantas departure desk in order to inform them about my baggage ( 2 bags) transfer. Qantas representative convinced me that there was enough time for that. Moreover the Qantas flight QF139 expected to be delayed.

However at the boarding time Qantas staff informed me that my baggage wont be on board for my flight as it was not transferred from Etihad.

Next 3 days I was trying to find out any information about my checked in baggage. But it was not successful. I was lucky that I had my wife at the moment was in Sydney and I asked her to investigate this matter. She found my bags at Etihad storage and they did not have any information about these bags further destination in spite the fact that all my tickets were sold by Etihad.

I would like to request a moral compensation in term of credit for my future flight for my and my wife expenses on traveling to and out of the airports, car park fees, phone-calls and time consuming procedures which we had to undergo before I got my baggage back to Christchurch.

ETIHAD GUEST # [protected]

My Travel Bank credit will expire on 30 Sep 2022.

The amount 283.650 KWD in my Travel Bank account was credited after cancellation of my ticket booked for KUWAIT to CALICUT during July 2020 (Covid time) . Nowadays Etihad is not operating flights to CALICUT and for this reason I’m not able to book the ticket.

Also if i try to book for my friends for other destinations Etihad prices are exorbitant compared to other airlines.

The issue that I have experienced was: My initial ticket was booked in February 2020 and due to covid 19 cancellations, the ticket was given as voucher/credit i.e. etihad travel bank account in December 2021. When they gave me as etihad travel bank credit, the etihad help in twitter had confirmed me that a standard non refundable ticket is refundable if we book it through etihad travel bank account. I booked my ticket from london heathrow lhr to chennai maa in July 2022 for travel in september 2022 and due to personal reasons i have to postpone my ticket or get it refunded as travel credit however etihad airline refuses to do so sighting silly reasons even though I had given screenshots of the conversation and confirmation given by etihad help to me in twitter.

It occurred on: 2022-07-18

This meant that It cost me 380£ GBP and they say its nom refundable. It also dostrubed my peace of mind for last 2 yrs as im unable to get payment/ book an equivalent ticket

It seems that my Airmiles has been credited incorrectly and unfairly based on the website. I have emailed [protected]@eithadguest.com regarding this so hopefully, it will be dealt with as soon as possible. Three of my flights were in Business class, which does not match. Could you please recheck this?

Also, I arrived in Manila on 26 July 2022 and was advised to contact the Etihad Manila office to discuss my miles and to correct my personal details. One member of staff had given me hope and I was told that I would be able to use my points to upgrade my next flight back to London. He also said that I would have 150, 000 + miles from my Business class flights LHR-MNL. However, when I called the Manila office to reconfirm this on 16 August 2022, they said that it would take a week for these to be processed which had already passed. It seems that staff members should be given proper training and must know the correct information that will be given to their guests. Thus, your miles calculator does not match with what was reflected in my account, e.g. miles earned.

The staff should also try to control the queues and advise all passengers to queue in Abu Dhabi. There was no difference whether you are travelling in Economy or Business class. This happens every time I travel from Abu Dhabi to Manila.

Dear Sirs,

I would like to describe the case that happened to my wife recently.

We went with family to Seychelles 29/07.

The flight was operated by Etihad Airways on the route: Brussels -Abu Dhabi - Victoria (Seychelles). After arrival to the end point we were informed that my wife's language has been lost and it will be delivered within a few days after.

We stayed in Seychelles 3 weeks till 21/08 and the language has not been delivered.

Obviously we called every day to Etihad asking for the status but nobody could not give us the status -we just received every day the message, the language will be delivered soon and we will be informed accordingly - SUCH UNPROFFESIONALL SERVICE CENTRE.

Now we are back to Brussels and still the language has not been found. The people from the Airways are creating everyday a new stories - and they are unable to give us any accurate information.

As a summary - I have never dealt with such an unprofessional company as Etihad. I hope I never have to use the service of Etihad again.

We came from athens to abudhabi and the time between the next connecting flight from abu dhabi to Bangalore was 55 mins. Instead of they guiding and helping us to board the flight, they already cancelled the tickets of the people who are travelling from athens and booked next flight i.e after 24 hours without intimate us, also it was their mistake and they not provide any lounge or accommodation to us. All of the staffs are very irresponsible and arrogant if we ask the explanation and solution. We paid for the ticket, we lost a entire day and missing our important works because of this irresponsible airways. Ethihad is the worst airlines.

I flew from Phuket to Abu Dhabi and in flight I asked TWO crew members to mediate an aggresive passanger seated behind me that was offensive, aggresive, rude, insulted me, and threatened me if I were to lower my chair to sleep during flight. His reason was .. he was tall.

So I quietly called the cred member through the seat button, light on, nobody came. 30 minutes later the light goes OFF and still nobody comes. When the air hostesses brought in the food, I asked for assistance and also told them that it's rude to leave a passanger wait for 30 minutes and than pretend it never happened.

Their "HELP" was to MOVE ME in the back at the aircraft, with an inferior seating and quality, right next to the toilet.

You can imagine that after almost 20 hours of being awake at that point, with a 7 hours flight in front of me, with a commute in Abu Dhabi of 5 more hours, and ANOTHER 7 hour flight before I would land in my final destination, IT should have been MY RIGHT to be able to sleep and lower my chair.

NOT ONLY the air hostesses DID NOTHING to mediate the aggresive passanger, but they kept asking me to go to the toilet, because they had a place there.

I am sure NOBODY is able to lower the chair next to the toilet, more over, sleep with almost 100 passangers going to the toilet during the flight. I can still hear the doors slamming every second with everyone using the restroom.

The hostesses(yes, plural. two) ALSO didn't serve ME food of beverages and pretended I didn't exist, although I was nice to them and polite.

I don't wish on your greatest enemies to be FORCED to take a 7 hour night flight and being FORCED to sit straight, with NO RIGHT to lower your back and let your body rest.

From the communication with you it's clear enough that this is expected, and although you CLAIM that safety comes first, YOU, the CREW, the CAPTAIN never tried to ensure my right to rest or safety and move the AGGRESIVE traveller behind the aircraft.

WIth all due respect, this was by far the WORSE experience EVER.

My basic rights have been DENIED and TRASHED.

I also payed a hefty ammount for these flights, I am sorry I picked you as a company.

I have been left to starve and only received water.

Your previous response is nothing but copy/paste from some nice writing, it doesn't reflect reality.

With me, next to me, a colleague of mine was also travelling.

He will be MORE than HAPPY to tell his part of the story, but he was served food and beverages and was able to lower his chair and REST.

The crew didn't enforce safety regulations and people were smoking in the toilets, TWICE the captain had to intervene.

Nobody respected the mask mandate, including the crew, and they also didn't enforce it.

I got COV-19 as soon as I got back home, I have official test results that can prove it.

I had to quarantine for 10 days, thanks again to a crew that should find a job more suited for them.

Please provide a human response, contact, understanding.

This is something that everyone MUST know and avoid at all costs.

NO safety in air, and passangers doing what they think they should, breaking the basic rules of decency, with nobody enforcing or caring.

I DO NOT care that you have young hostesses that wear make-up and try to look fit.

They cannot handle stress, they have NO authority and myself and other passangers are paying a hefty price for a poor service.

My tip to other passangers, fly Ethiad if you want to smoke for free during flight.

Etihad refused to travel with my 2 kg puppy inside the cabin under my seat based on some internal procedure with reason "all pet slots for your requested flight have been reserved".

First of all there is no proper communication line established by Etihad between pet delivery service and clients. "[protected]@etihad.ae" address never replies on clients queries if any concerns were raised and directs you to Etihad main contact line. Etihad main contact line doesn't know anything about Pet delivery service in their company and ask you to send emails back to who never replies back. Finally I was able to reach Etihad through Facebook direct messages but the results are the same when finally Etihad representative direct you to Etihad Feedback complain link with mentioning that they have a right to reply you back in 35 days and knowing that your flight will be after 9 days. It looks like "a cycle inside a circus" where the client left alone to deal with problems and nobody from Etihad cares.

Second main problem, Etihad have some internal procedure that they can reject booking for pets because there is no "slots for pets available inside the cabin". In my case we are talking about 2 kg small dog which will travel under my seat and I fulfilled all Etihad requirements including size of dog carrier! According with Etihad Pet Policy and Etihad official web site, there is no any T&C mentioned about "slots availability for pets inside the cabin" in their flights especially when you do not need anything from the airline, you just need to place your small dog under your seat. So you book your tickets, prepare a lot of documents to travel with your pet which is linked with your flight number and date like Pet Import permit where your final destination country is and than Etihad can easy reject you to travel with pet because of "pet slots availability inside the cabin" and saying it is your problem, we have some internal procedure which we never inform our clients by any way of communication including official website before buying tickets and you should go and reschedule your flight, redo all required documents, and after Etihad will check "slots availability" again and if "slots" are available you will be allowed to travel with your pet and if not, restart "the cycle" - Remember my first point about "a cycle inside a circus".

Etihad positioned themselves that they are the top airline which are providing option to travel with pet, in reality what I feel by their replies and attitude they put such obstacles in purpose to reject any flight for their clients with pets at last moment to put their clients at corner situation and get more money.