Etihad Complaints Dept

[Tolsti]

Does anyone have the direct email address of the head person at Etihad Customer Services in Abu Dhabi?? ( an name and address would be great)
I've emailed London and faxed Abu Dhabi but not even had an acknowledgment.
Thanks

[Repose]

Stonewalling

[email protected]

Expect stonewalling, and no response. Even if you got in touch with a person - you will be passed on as a hot potato from person to person, department to department. In the UAE -"politeness is considered customer service" there is no commitment on their part to resolve or address your complaint. You will never get an answer, but maybe some sympathy. If you persist - they will get vindictive, avoid you or report you - as a troublemaker. The concept of "customer comes first" has not taken root amongst their authoritarian top down management philosophy yet. There is no feedback loop, since everyone is just supposed to blindly follow the draconion order.

The ground staff is incompetent, disempowered and passive at best. Anything outside of the routine makes them nervous and leaves them befuddled. Your dealing with badly trained foreign nationals from third world countries mostly.

Gross negligence, lack of personal integrity, and general stonewalling is my experience of trying to make a complaint.

[Ancient Observer]

The only influence route is to find someone who knows someone who is an EVP, or better still , the wife of an EVP. Join Linked in and try to find out?

[Tolsti]

Thanks for both those replies to my ancient post. I did eventually get in touch with Etihad via the normal routes and the issues I had at the time were dealt with rapidly and effieciently once that contact had been made.

Since then I have had a couple of mileage queries resolved quickly and satisfactorily and redeeming points proved painless when I flew here in May.

I realise from watching another forum that there seem to be some current issues but none that have affected me.

Etihad remains my favourite ME carrier and I am saving hard to fund a trip in their Diamond suites this year.

[L'aviateur]

I had a particularly difficult situation with Etihad recently. I booked a fully refundable business class flight using someone elses company credit card, and the website at the time told me to take a copy of the card and the persons passport when checking in. Fine, no problems with that. Then two days after booking, received an e-mail saying the booking was suspended until the cardholder presented themself at either Manchester or London airport, which they were'nt prepared to do. So we said ok, cancel it. They cancelled it, but it took 3 months to obtain a refund, and about 20 phone calls trying to chase this up.
A few minutes after I cancelled the booking, I used the same card to make the same booking on the same flight through Expedia, no problems at all.

On the positive note, Etihad is a fantastic airline to fly with, excellent service onboard, great as you wish dining service and good lie flat seats in cubicles.

[Nick Riviera]

"but it took 3 months to obtain a refund"

Why? It was booked using a credit card so you should have got a refund from the card provider once you explained the situation to them. Think it's called Section 75, means that you are refunded straight away and the card company then deals with the retailer.

[L'aviateur]

Nick,
Section 75 of the CCA is a long and arduous process to follow, I previously used it when a flying club went under and I had to reclaim 1000 pounds from my account. They do seem to expect you to provide proof that you've persued all over means to reclaim the money.
In the situation with Etihad, they did continuously promise to refund the money on several occasions, and always agreed that it could be refunded as it was a fully refundable ticket. It was simply a slow process, but had it taken any longer, then we would have used section 75.

Singapore Airlines on the other hand, when I've needed to cancel a fully refundable ticket have allowed this to be done online and refunded it within 2 days.