[Anonymous]

[Ftrichard]

Recently did BAH – AUH – BRU – AUH – PVG – AUH – BAH in business on one EY ticket, interested to try out Etihad’s new service to Shanghai. I fly to PVG 6 or 7 times per year and have done this almost exclusively with QR in the past as I am based in the Gulf region and I love QR’s 777 business seats on this route.

Appreciated the chauffeur service in AUH (brought me to Dubai and back) and from BRU to my home in Belgium and back. They have not started the service in Shanghai – interested to see if that happens.

Service and food was pretty good on all flights as usual with EY and I had both the A330-200 with the older seats (turquoise) and the A330-300 with the new seats. I have flown with the old ones very often and quite like them actually. The new ones offer much more storage for bits and pieces but I hate the enormous hinge for the foldaway table, banging my knee on many occasions.

Positive is the fact that the flight to PVG gets out of AUH at 23:15 and into PVG at 11:00, giving you more time in Shanghai than the QR flight which arrives shortly after 14:00, meaning the day is shot by the time you get to your hotel. The return flight gets into AUH at 06:55, which is fine for the scheduled connection to BAH at 08:30 in my case. Unfortunately this is where things went badly wrong for me.

We arrived early in AUH and having fought my way through thousands of pilgrims heading to Mekka, I was able to grab a welcome shower and coffee in the lounge before heading for my flight to BAH at 08:30. On boarding I noticed that it was exactly the same A330-300 I had just come in on from Shanghai which was in a special purple “Visit Abu Dhabi” livery. We taxied out and then stood still for a while before the captain explained there was a problem with a computer that they were trying to re-boot. After more than 2 hours (10:45) we were asked to disembark as the problem was not solved. Business passengers were sent to the lounge and asked to check flight connections at midday.

A friendly lounge attendant tried to speed up the process for me and another traveller but later came back to say we were re-booked on the EY to BAH at 21:30 that day – 13 hours later than the original flight! I had already asked to be put on a GF flight but apparently the 7 available seats had been given to some Bahraini sheikhs.

Went to flight connections and politely requested to talk to a Supervisor, to whom I explained that I was an Etihad Gold member, had just flown with them to their new Shanghai destination for the first time and that it would definitely be the last if they intended to make me wait 13 hours for the short hop to BAH. That induced some action and whilst GF was still a no-go, I and my colleague sufferer were booked on EK from DXB at 16:30. Our luggage was returned and we were driven to Dubai to get this flight. Ultimate loss of time: 8 precious hours.

We all know these things can happen and I for one am glad that safety is given priority. If something goes wrong a hub such as AUH must have the possibility to provide their passengers an alternative in a reasonable time frame. 13 hours is not reasonable for a 55 minute flight to BAH and having to negotiate a solution which reduces this to 8 hours is also very poor service. I wrote to Etihad on this and in addition to the usual standard apology I was offered 100 USD as compensation. I feel that 100 USD is almost an insult for such a delay and I believe that EU compensation starts at 250 EURO, which is a more appropriate level.

My next trip to PVG in a few weeks was already booked with EY so I hope that they will restore my faith during that trip.

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