emirates airline

Desperate to Fly out of Dubai

January 10, 2012

in Airport Stories

After spending a wonderful four weeks on a road trip along the east coast of Australia, we boarded our Emirates plane in Sydney to Munich via Dubai.

After an uneventful 12 hour flight nearly all the way to Dubai, we learned that we were unable to land in Dubai due to fog. We would instead be landing in Abu Dhabi.

After arriving in Abu Dhabi we were told we could not leave the plane because we would shortly be flying to Dubai International Airport (DXB). Well, everyone believed that at first. After five hours sitting in a not-moving plane in Abu Dhabi (we sat in this plane for 17 hours altogether by now), and with increasingly unnerved FAs, we were finally told to leave the plane.

After arriving in an otherwise deserted departure hall with a closed shop, it quickly became obvious that there weren’t enough seats for everyone. Luckily we were traveling as a couple, so we could defend the seat if one of us had to get up to go somewhere. To make a long story short, after another seven hours in Abu Dhabi we were flown to DXB, a flight of 20 minutes duration.

After we arrived there we were told to go to the transit counter. Well, everyone else in the whole world had been told that too. A lot of planes were stranded in DXB. In front of the 14 counters a plethora of people were standing in queue. In queue? No, no queues here! A huge unorganized crowd. In front of me a British guy with Middle Eastern accent complaining and babbling about his lawyer he would call the first thing in the morning. Behind me an Arabian fellow with a comfort zone way smaller than my own.

I spent a whole seven hours in this crowd before getting to the clerk, when I learned why this was taking so long. Apparently the computer system for the luggage was out of order too. So the clerks had to call the luggage guys for every single bag over the phone. On top of that it seemed they had gathered the most inexperienced personnel they could find. She gave me a reservation for a flight another 20 hours in the future. I enquired about a hotel (we hadn’t seen a bath or a bed for over 48 hours now) but was told that there weren’t any now, I should come back in an hour. In a mixture of disbelief and anger I asked, “How do you expect me to do this? I was standing here in line for seven hours to get to you.” She only replied that she didn’t care, I should come back in an hour.

My fiancée, who waited in the back of the crowd for the whole time, nearly bust in tears after hearing this. But she quickly recovered, rushed into a lounge without being bothered at the entry counter (we were flying Eco), told some employee she needed two blankets, and left with them. No one even asked a question.

We spent the rest of the night on the floor between two gates. In the morning I tried to get a hotel once again. The picture at the counters hadn’t changed a bit. No hotel for us. So we spent the whole day in Dubai Airport. We hadn’t showered or changed clothes in over 50 hours now when we finally boarded the plane to Munich. While I don’t have a problem with that when I’m trekking in Himalaya, I sure do have a problem in the midst of civilization. During boarding we talked with another couple that got a hotel even though they waited in the same crowd at the same time in front of the counters.

We arrived in Munich on Sunday afternoon without luggage instead of Saturday morning as we had planned. (Surprised? Not really.) My suitcase arrived on Tuesday; my fiancée’s arrived on Wednesday.

Reaction from Emirates? “We are looking into your complaint and getting back to you.” Four years later they still haven’t.

I don’t blame those folks for the weather, but I blame them for their exceedingly unorganised behaviour. You’d think one of the largest airports in the world with all the luxury around could handle waiting queues.

My conclusion: Never ever again will I fly with Emirates or have a stopover in DXB, even if I have to pay a small fortune in order to avoid this.

- George

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Tagged as: airport, baggage, delay & cancellation, emirates airline, hotel, weather

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Travelers Terrorized by Turbulence

September 20, 2011

in Weather Stories

It was January 2004 and I had just boarded an Emirates flight from Dubai to Düsseldorf to visit my family in Germany. I am not a happy flyer and hate watching take-offs, so I always ask for an aisle seat. On this flight I was seated in the aisle seat on the left side of the middle row in the back of the plane, surrounded by a German group of young business people. They asked me if I would like to switch seats so that they could all sit together, even offering me a window seat. I politely said no thanks, but I don’t do window seats for these and those reasons, and I specially requested an aisle one; they accepted my explanation without further ado.

Upon taxiing to the runway, the captain announced that we would experience turbulence when crossing Iran, but nothing too serious. So we took off and while climbing into the skies above the Gulf and reaching Iran we were served breakfast – something more than one person would regret later!

Now, I am one of those people who can’t take any movement without turning green in seconds and puking my guts out, so I had taken a travel-sickness pill which always has a nice kiss-my-bootie effect and keeps my nervousness under wraps (especially when combined with a small bottle of red wine and cabin pressure, though it was much too early for booze). My direct seat neighbour was a guy from that business group, a Palestinian, who I rather quickly fell into discussion with, including about the conflicts between his people and Israel. I was especially interested since I once dated someone from Palestine years back.

With this rather interesting talk time flew until all of a sudden we hit the first rough spot. In the beginning it was just some normal rocking and slight shaking, nobody cared, talking continued, as did service. This, however, changed very quickly when the rocking and shaking became harder and harder and the plane really swayed from side to side and went up and down. People were ordered to their seats and to buckle up and it got much more quiet.

My seat neighbour turned slightly whitish, telling me he isn’t the most courageous person. He said he doesn’t mind flying when it’s calm, but as the turbulence was getting worse and worse he was getting really nervous. I tried to calm him by telling him things a friend (a FA with Emirates) had told me and what I had read in a book and it did seem to help for a while. Until we hit rock bottom, that is.

All of a sudden the hard rocking turned to severe uplifts and downfalls, the plane plummeted a few hundred metres and lifted up again, the wings swayed up and down, and the plane swerved from side to side. People started to gasp and scream with each plummet, children cried, and the captain announced via intercom that the service should stop and the FAs must sit down immediately, which they did in a breeze.

It had become totally quiet, the only noise was the screams when we hit another air pocket and fell down like a rock. My seat neighbour had grasped the back of the seat in front of him with both hands which were chalk white. I was mysteriously calm, which was definitely due to the little pill I had taken before the flight and all the info about how planes function and so on that I had soaked up. The worse it got, the more relaxed I was.

Not so well though was a young Indian woman in front of me. She started throwing up when the turbulence got worse, and every so often her husband, whose turban I could see bobbing up and down with the movement of the plane, went and disposed of a bag of sickie, returning with a fresh one. The poor woman! I considered offering her a pill but knew it would be useless, as it would come out right away. Still I asked the man if he would like one for his wife, quickly explaining what it does as he clearly had never heard of something like a travel sickness pill before. He accepted my offer and, when the plane hit a slightly quieter patch, his wife quickly swallowed the pill and things went much easier for her once the plane went downwards again, this time with even harder plummets and more swaying.

This whole ordeal lasted from somewhere over Iran, and all across Turkey and the Black Sea, but once we reached Romania/Bulgaria it became totally calm again. Service, which had stalled for 3 hours, picked up again and shortly afterwards chatter filled the cabin again. The only thing left from the heavy turbulence was that we had climbed higher and higher to get out of it as much as possible, so descending started at Nürnberg  instead of Frankfurt.

We landed smoothly in Düsseldorf and I bid farewell to my friendly seat neighbour and the Indian couple. To this day I sometimes think of this flight and how the cabin crew rushed to their seats – you know it is getting rough when service is stopped and the FAs are asked to buckle up.

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Tagged as: emirates airline, flight attendant, seats, vomit, weather

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Miss Psychotic

May 3, 2011

in Passenger Stories

Well I could have guessed people of a less stable mind would have to travel too. Last September I finally witnessed this. It all happened on a nice late September day flying on an Emirates flight from Dubai to Düsseldorf, a 6 or 7 hour flight. Thank God it was on a day time flight.

I was seated with my wife in one of the last rows on a Boeing 777 where they have 2 seats instead of 3 on each side. In the middle 4 seats in the same row as us were seated an Indian or Pakistani family. Nothing out of the ordinary on an Emirates flight.

While we were already watching a movie and getting annoyed over the pre-flight messages which I remember come up at full volume, we suddenly heard someone weeping and crying loudly a few seats away.

One of the daughters of said Indian family was having a complete mental breakdown. She grabbed the seat in front of her and started hitting and kicking it, crying and screaming, grabbing the remote of the ICE and hitting the screen and chair with it. Let me tell you, I now know that is made of some durable stuff! You should also know this was a grown woman, not some child.

Watching it is funny at first, like the Germans say “Schadenfreude,” but it soon got annoying. Note we were still standing on the tarmac. The flight attendants came by every now and then telling her parents to quiet her down (!), which of course only helped temporarily.

After another 10 minutes an announcement was made by the crew notifying us that we would be delayed since there was a passenger that had to get removed from the airplane. I could see people around us getting relieved, and we couldn’t wait until she was escorted out. But when the attendants finally came, they handed out ear plugs! And another half hour later there was an excuse for the delay announcement. Apparently someone wanted to leave the airplane because he just took notice that his father passed away. And the airplane started to taxi!

That was it. This meant we would be sitting a few seats away from Miss Psychotic for the remaining 7 hours of the flight. She completely freaked out as soon as the airplane started to take off. Thank God she was wearing a seat belt. It was a good thing the airplane was not full so passengers in her immediate vicinity could be placed elsewhere. We were still sitting 3 or 4 seats away from her when our meals were served; unbelievably she also got a tray and her family had to feed her. This went well for a couple of minutes until the tray was sent flying down the aisle and her and her family’s drinks got spilled all over.

She also pulled off the tie of one of the attendants; now I know why they wear fake ties. She grabbed onto other attendants too with her nails. I felt pity for them and still can’t comprehend why she wasn’t removed from the airplane altogether in the first place.

Everything ends, as gladly did this flight from hell. Afterwards they were quickly rushed out of the airplane. I heard her again at the passport control, where people quickly led them to the front of the line.

You see the strangest of people on Emirates flights!

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Turbulence Terrifies Travelers

August 17, 2010

in Weather Stories

In January 2004 I was on an Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai/United Arab Emirates to Dusseldorf/Germany. The flight left DXB in the early morning, and just before take-off the pilot announced that there was turbulence over Iran. Yummy!

Well, for the first hour or so nothing happened. We were served breakfast and I had a nice chat with a Palestinian guy next to me who had been to some event in Dubai with his workmates from Germany. Shortly after breakfast, however, the rough weather started. What were small shakes in the beginning turned into heavy swings and the plane dropped several times with people screaming and clinging to their armrests. I am not a brave flier, but thanks to a friend who is a FA with Emirates and a book I had bought which explains basically every single plane movement, I was quite calm. Add to that a travel sickness pill and I was even able to keep the guy sitting beside me relaxed, though he did grab the front seat a few times with force.

The pilots ascended as high as they could to avoid the worst but it was no use. The turbulence got so bad that the FAs were ordered to stop all service and sit down as well.

An Indian couple right in front of me had a particularly bad time; the lady had to throw up again and again and her husband kept on handing the bags to a FA. At some point I offered them one of my travel pills which they gratefully accepted and luckily she was able to keep her stuff down long enough for the pill to start working. She looked mighty relieved and so did her hubby!

We were strapped to our seats all across Iran, Turkey and the Black Sea. Only when we reached Romania did the turbulence go away – just with a snap it was gone. Service started up again right away and when we reached Germany the descent began in the region of Nuremberg as we were so high.

I was really glad when the flight was over, and to top it all off I was confronted with a very unfriendly customs guy. I am usually polite, but after more than 4 hours of shaky weather I was in no mood to argue politely so I more or less told him where to stick it and even got an apology. ;)

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Tagged as: emirates airline, vomit, weather

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