WE made the unfortunate mistake of booking a flight with Etihad Airways and it’s no one that we will ever make again. We were supposed to travel from London Heathrow Terminal 4 on 03/04/24 to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi. Our flight at 21.55 pulled away from the bridge but had to return around an hour later due to technical reasons. We had to stay overnight in a hotel provided by the airline but having been at the airport from 18.00 hrs we were offered no food or drink and the hotel said they could not provide any either. We returned to the airport for another flight at 07.30 04/04/24 (the next day) for a 10.30 am flight but this flight was delayed until 14.50. The flight arrived in Abu Dhabi around 00.51 (05/04/24) and from there we got told we had a 10-hour stopover so they took us to a hotel which we arrived at 03.30. We had to be at reception for 07.30 to return to the airport for a 10.25 flight. This flight was then delayed until 13.00 and we eventually arrived in Thailand at 00.06 on 06/04/24. We missed our Thai VietJet flight to Phuket on 05/04/24 and could not get another flight due to it being Thai New Year and everything was fully booked. I lost out on my Bangkok airport hotel and taxi to it from the airport on 04/04/24 Phuket hotel, My Phuket Hotel for 5 nights, car hire for our stay and extra car hire insurance as a top up to the included car hire insurance. I couldn’t cancel any of these items because the cancellation date had passed by the time we found out we were not going to be there. The whole holiday was a total disaster and Etihad airways are solely responsible for ruining our holiday. The response to our claim has been to just ignore us and they just don’t care at all. We fly this route every year often twice a year and have used many different Airlines including Qatar and Emirates, BA, Thai, and EVA to name a few and never had this trouble. Disgraceful treatment by an airline but now you know what to expect if things go wrong. THE PLANES ARE ALWAYS DELAYED AND WHEN THEY ARE... YOUR IN TROUBLE AND DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR THE COMPENSATION UK AND EU LAW SAYS YOU ARE ENTITLED TO AS THEY DON'T CARE. £560 PER PERSON FOR DELAYS OVER 3 HOURS IS THE LAW. PLUS ALL OUR OTHER LOSSES TOO.
Recommendation: Fly with anyone else if this is the way they treat people.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.