Emirates flight from hell - refusing to contact me back

TCA1989

Hello,

For anyone who wants to check this is regarding flight EK9 DXB-LGW on Sunday 11th December 2022.

The basic story is that we were diverted to Amsterdam due to a bit of snow closing Gatwick for an hour, this diversion lead to baggage being ruined, lies, immigration issues and being severely out of pocket. We landed at Gatwick 25 hours late.

My issue is that the airline are refusing to acknowledge that any of this is an issue at all, to the extent where they are giving passengers broken web links to claim for expenses whilst we were there - yet you can’t upload documents, you can’t give more than 200 characters of derail etc. so it is impossible. Emirates customer service will not reply on the matter anymore, insisting they’ve done everything they need to.

I luckily purchased the flights on a credit card so I shall be starting a S75 claim soon but was wondering what exactly we’d be entitled to.

Here is the schedule of events:

1) we get over the English Channel and start circling, no information but after an hour we get told due to snow we’re diverting to Brussels. Above Brussels we circle for another hour without info before getting told we’re diverting to Amsterdam.

2) we taxi and park up on a remote stand awaiting Gatwick to reopen. The door is opened for ground crew access and our part of the plane drops to around 10 degree Celsius. No food or drink offered and this continues for 2 hours 50 minutes. We’re given half hourly updates stating they’re still working on it. The crew mostly retire to where they can’t be found and the ground crew take the brunt of the passenger anger. After 2 hours they hand out the second hand blankets they’d collected as some elderly people were saying the conditions are now getting dangerous with the wind howling into them from the door in front - business class wasn’t full and they decided not to move these people there despite their suffering and being 80+ years old. 

2) we get told the pilot is now out of hours so we’re going to go to a gate and get another emirates pilot to take us to Gatwick, an hour wait at the gate with no doors open. It is now around 11pm.

3) we are told we can’t travel as the ground crew are busy on an emirates 777 the other side of the airport and by the time they’d be done the airspace into Gatwick wouldn’t accept us, and we’d have to depart at 0600 the next morning. An hour wait starts for that crew to finish up to come and open the doors.

4) the doors open and we’re not allowed off as many passengers have UK visas and nothing else. An hour wait whilst they discuss options and begging to book hotels.

5) we are told they are struggling to book hotels for everyone as the airport and surrounding area is full, I check and ring several airport hotels and they are nowhere near full. Others do the same and passengers start to get very angry at being kept onboard with no food or drink for this long.

6) the crew tell us business class passengers have hotels and they’ll now move to booking for economy, business passengers leave aircraft.

7) a passenger asks and receives a lot of support on just letting us stay on the aircraft and giving us food and drink, as we are now only a few hours from the new departure time. We are categorically told no, passenger says good luck getting 400 people off then.

8) 5 minutes later we are told there is a hotel for everybody, buses waiting and anyone with UK visas will be able to enter the NL temporarily and there will be no issue.

9) we leave the aircraft, walk 20 minutes through the airport to find everything is closed - immigration booths, doors, the lot. No staff available, aircraft doors are shut when people go to investigate. 

10) the police arrive as people are trying to open doors to get our, they say emirates and ground crew haven’t been contacted and they don’t know what is happening. They eventually track down a duty manager who takes 30 minutes to arrive, by this point people were drinking from toilet taps etc through desperation as we had no access to anything. 

11) emirates manager arrives and chaos ensues, he admits there are no hotels available. I check again and many airport hotels are available, and the wider airport area. Others do this and challenge him, he says if that’s the case then we can leave and book hotels ourselves, he promises the airline will reimburse any cost. I have this on video, as it seemed something that could also be a lie.

12) he then lets slip that the aircraft will not depart amsterdam until 6pm the following day, seemingly unaware we’d been lied to and told 6am. He panics and tries to reassure us 6pm is the worst case, around this time someone on Emirate’s support line confirms the plane is scheduled to leave at 6pm, so he’s also lying.

13) mothers of babies are now crying saying they need their bags from the hold as they’re running out of supplies, people saying the same as they didn’t expect a 6 hour+ delay without medicines, hygiene products etc.

14) duty manager says the aircraft has already been towed to a remote stand and nobody will be getting any bags off the aircraft, there are no crew on the airport site that can offload the aircraft. He’s unable to answer when asked what are we supposed to do for medicines etc. 

15) at this stage I booked an airport hotel myself and left the airport with expenses exceeding €200. The airport hotel is empty and the receptionist said they had over 170 rooms available but over 400 available at sister brand hotels. 

16) all contact now stops from emirates regarding updates, which we were promised would go to our registered emails and phone numbers. I’m left battling emirates on Twitter to be told the aircraft is leaving at 5 different times, I’m also told I’ve been rebooked into a KLM flight etc. so vastly differing information.

17) I now get quite ill thanks to the stress, the cold, the lack of food and water and running out of medical supplies for my condition. I manage to get an emergency prescription but the result of this situation lead to 10 days of infection thanks to a long running kidney issue I wasn’t prepared for (I had at least 12 hours supply for the 6.5 hour flight) and around 7 days supply in my hold luggage. 

18) we eventually get concrete information that we need to be at the airport for 4pm to depart at 6pm. We arrive back at the airport and get given a €40 voucher at check in to spend on food, this was supposed to have been given the previous night but all airport restaurants and shops were closed. I proceed past security to spend it and find the satellite terminal building we’re using has no shops open other than McDonald’s, this McDonald’s had an Airbus A380 sized queue outside and ran out of nearly every food item. 

19) I find an emirates manager dealing with our flight as during this time I realise (and confirm with an emirates pilot friend) that our aircraft had our bags onboard in the cargo hole and was taken to a remote stand likely without electric supply. She assures us the aircraft was hooked up to electrics and remained heated, I was worried at this point that my medical equipment would have all froze (sits in sterile liquids) and exploded, alongside any other liquids in the bag. We get the bus to the stand and I take a picture of the stand number, the pilot friend says he’s 99% sure there would have been no electricity or onboard supply for the time the aircraft was left there. 

20) we arrive in Gatwick 25 hours late, €400 out of pocket, not even a sorry or a thank you leaving the aircraft, get our bags and I find that several things had exploded due to freezing and then thawing/pressurising at altitude. 

21) since that day emirates haven’t offered any apology and state I have zero rights as this was all due to snow and is out of their control (Gatwick was only closed for an hour, all other aircraft caught in the saga either circled or diverted then came back to Gatwick straight away, we were the only flight affected this badly). As I say they’ve agreed to reimburse costs but have given a portal where this is impossible to do.

It is very long winded but I’m sure you understand the level of frustration every passenger had that day, and now we’re all coming to a realisation that emirates do not care and are having to pursue other methods.

 I was also insured on my annual policy for the trip, I assume a s75 claim is likely to be more effective though. 

Thanks for reading, if anything I hope it was entertaining and made any flight drama you’ve had feel like it wasn’t even an issue! 😉

I’m going to copy and paste this for my S75 claim anyway so if nobody responds it was at least a good vent and warning to others!

eskbanker

Doesn't sound like much fun, but unfortunately an Emirates flight operating into the UK offers less protection than flights covered by the UK/EU regulations regarding delays, cancellations, etc.  That's not to say that you have no rights, and there are international standards requiring the airline to fund overnight accommodation, for example, so they should reimburse that.

A s75 claim will be dependent on evidencing breach of contract, so you'd need to focus on what falls into that category, as opposed to all the service quality issues, which aren't relevant to your card provider.  I'd suggest a more concise claim, itemising expenses that the airline is clearly liable for, together with legislative citations to support that, rather than a long narrative like that....

tightauldgit

I think you need to separate out the issues here. Some of them are just poor service but not covered by legislation while others may well be subject to statutory compensation requirements. 

Some of it may well be better dealt with by travel insurance.

All the background and colour is probably irrelevant to your claim just document what you were entitled to by the rules and why , what you did and didn't receive and what you believe you are owed.  

CKhalvashi

It doesn't sound like fun but this is outside of EC261 (and UK261) jurisdiction and most of it is outside the control of the airline. If you can find an e-mail address or a page on Emirates' website, I'd suggest this as a first port of call if the link you have isn't working.

While I agree you haven't received good service here, the following should be taken into account;

For the second no.2, crew hours are outside of the control of the airline and are regulated for safety. The pilot was right to not extend their duty time, no matter the inconvenience to passengers.

For no.7, failure to follow crew instructions is in many countries a criminal offence, as is tampering with airport security features and attempting to evade immigration control, as you reference in no.10.

Emirates are not in control of immigration facilities nor are they in control of McDonalds stock levels.

Aircraft are not generally kept to GPUs during parking, nor are APUs routinely left running outside of turnarounds. I see no operational reason why this shouldn't have been the case and your friend is correct.

You should be able to claim for the hotel, transport to/from the airport and any damage to bags as long as this was logged at the airport and you don't have a limited release tag.