I’m Sympathetic To This (Dramatic) Etihad Complaint, But…

I’m always happy to share my take on travel complaints, and I try to call ’em as I see ’em. Sometimes I think airlines act completely out of line, sometimes I think consumers are a little unreasonable, and sometimes complaints just reflect some of the unfortunate realities of the industry. So, here’s an interesting case…

Traveler furious after being “denied boarding” by Etihad mid-journey

A Twitter/X user tagged me in his complaint about a journey on Etihad from Brussels (BRU) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) to Melbourne (MEL), where he was traveling in business class with his 11-year-old son. While he only tagged me in this within the past day, he has been literally posted about this dozens of times over the past couple of weeks, starting from the time of the flight.

The claim seems to be that he was denied boarding mid-journey, with no justification, no explanation, no compensation, and no assistance.

The traveler now claims to be “launching a structured collective legal action that anyone affected can join,” which will be of “international scale,” and he’s citing everything from the Montreal Convention, to legal obligations toward minors, and he’s seeking “financial and moral compensation.”

He claims to have already created a legal case file, and has submitted reports to authorities in Belgium, France, the UAE, IATA, EASA, Skytrax, European dispute platforms, and more.

He claims that when “you mess with the wrong passenger, you face the consequences.” And he even claims to have thrown away his return ticket in Etihad business class, and booked another airline, because he refuses to fly with the airline again.

He also responds to most Etihad social media posts, trashing the airline. Then they respond to him and ask him to send a DM, which he refuses to do, stating he has no obligation to enter their internal system, and that “you have been fully informed of the situation, the deadlines, and the consequences.”

What actually caused this Etihad issue, though?

I’ve gotta be honest, I get annoyed when people only tell part of the story. Like, I understand wanting to make the airline look bad, but it’s hard to draw any conclusions without all the facts.

I spent quite some time going through dozens of this guy’s posts, all about being abandoned mid-journey with no explanation whatsoever. Curiosity got the best of me, because while airlines sometimes don’t have great customer service, they don’t generally just abandon passengers for no reason.

So after reading between the lines and looking at the timestamps on his posts, it appears that he traveled on April 25. His Etihad itinerary had a 70-minute layover in Abu Dhabi, from 7:20PM until 8:30PM, which is a legal connection, but of course leaves little room for error.

His flight from Brussels was delayed a bit. While it was supposed to arrive at the gate at 7:20PM, it only touched down at 7:44PM, and then made it to the gate at 7:48PM, around 30 minutes behind schedule.

The father and son duo then had to get off the aircraft, clear transit security, and make it to the new gate. My assumption is that the passengers ended up being denied boarding because they arrived at the gate as the flight was getting ready to close up. Etihad’s contract of carriage indicates that “you must be present at the boarding gate not later than the boarding time written in your boarding pass.”

The father explains he still saw people boarding, but it’s possible that the airline started to clear standby passengers. After all, if an airline doesn’t think people will make the flight and there are people on standby, they will load them on at some point, which is fair enough. The father and son were rebooked on the next flight, which was the following morning, around 12 hours later.

Unfortunately this is an unpleasant industry reality

I’m of two minds on this incident. On the one hand, I’m of course sympathetic. On the other hand, I think this situation is being blown out of proportion.

Look, the traveler booked a tight connection, which Etihad voluntarily sold, and a delay caused him to misconnect. I don’t think airlines should sell such tight connections, because the odds of something going wrong are pretty high. But virtually every airline does it, so Etihad can hardly be singled out for that.

It’s of course also annoying when you still arrive at the gate while the door is open, only to find that you can’t board, because you’ve been offloaded for some reason. But per the contract of carriage, Etihad didn’t violate its own rules, as the passengers presumably weren’t at the gate at the posted boarding time (through no fault of their own), which is what the airline technically requires.

The good news is that under EU261 regulations, the father and son are each eligible for 600 EUR cash compensation. That needs to be requested after the fact via customer service, so it’s not the “on the spot” compensation that the customer was hoping for. The airline also has a duty of care, to pay for any other expenses incurred as a result of this, which should be reimbursed after the fact.

Frankly, I find the rest of the claims here to be a bit extreme, like mentioning obligations toward minors (I mean, it was a father and son traveling together), and being angry that he got contacted by spam bots when complaining about Etihad online (the airline has zero control over that).

It absolutely does sound like the customer service representatives should have been more polite in the situation, based on his version of events. But that’s hardly something that needs to trigger “collective action” on an “international scale.”

I imagine that on the average day, hundreds of Etihad passengers misconnect, but that’s no different than at any other airline. Of course this can be extremely frustrating, and I empathize with the passenger. But unfortunately I put this in the category of something that happens when airline operations don’t run smoothly, especially when traveling with a tight connection.

He’s at least lucky that he was on an itinerary eligible for EU261 compensation, because otherwise, he’d technically be entitled to nothing.

Bottom line

A father and son traveling together in Etihad business class were denied boarding mid-journey. While the father says it was done without justification, it appears that the issue was that his inbound flight was delayed, so he arrived at the gate too late, and had already been offloaded. That’s of course really frustrating, but it’s hardly that out of the ordinary.

I can totally appreciate the frustration here, and I’d consider the good news to be that he’s entitled to EU261 compensation. But aside from that, I’d file this in the category of “typical airline treatment when things go wrong.” He can throw away his return ticket and book another airline, but I wouldn’t expect a different outcome, if faced with the same situation…

What do you make of this Etihad complaint?