I am writing this email to share my recent experience with flying Emirates. I live in Houston, TX. My parents live in Dhaka, Bangladesh. My father recently broke his hip by accident and required surgery. I purchased a round trip Emirates e-ticket urgently from an independent agent in Austin, TX. There were so many problems during this round trip journey that I am writing two separate paragraphs to cover the entire experience.

I left on July 10th to ensure that I am in Dhaka for my father’s surgery on the 12th. I was supposed to fly Continental from Houston to JFK and then make an Emirates connection to Dubai and onward to Dhaka. My CO flight from Houston to JFK kept getting delayed. I knew that if I waited for that flight I would miss my Emirates connection in JFK and ultimately miss my father’s surgery. When I explained my problem to CO agent at IAH, she was nice enough to put me on a CO flight from Houston to London. She also booked me on an Emirates flight from London to Dubai. I could still make my last flight between Dubai and Dhaka. So, she did not change this one. Unfortunately my checked in luggage was already in the Houston-JFK flight and could not be re-routed to my Houston-London flight.

My original return booking was for August 9th. However, due to some complications with a new house purchase, I needed to be back in Houston earlier. I went to Emirates offices in Dhaka a total of four (4) times. Apparently when CO changed my flight from Houston-JFK to Houston-London they had inadvertently exchanged my round trip ticket to two one-way tickets. At least this is the explanation I was given my Emirates staff. I had one Emirates staff (located in Motijheel office in Dhaka) tell me that he would have to research and send information to NY/Dubai for clarification. He also told me that he could not put me on any Delta flight out of JFK to Houston because they were overbooked. When I asked what if I bought a new ticket from JFK to Houston (I am a US passport holder), he said he could not confirm my return Emirates ticket between Dhaka- Dubai and Dubai-JFK if I did not board on Delta as planned. Later, I went to Emirates Gulshan office in Dhaka. Agents there did not agree with the comments made by the agent in the Motijheel office. However, they kept making me call them every day for updates. If I were in the US, this problem could have been fixed over the phone in one phone call based on my past experience. There was utter incompetence demonstrated by the Emirates staff in Dhaka. However, there was an Asama Rahman, who was at least very polite and nice. The rest of the agents I communicated with had very little knowledge and understanding of the situation. They severely lack training in how to treat a customer.

During my return, my first Emirates flight in Dhaka kept us waiting on the runway for 2 hours before concluding that it had a mechanical problem and could not fly. Emirates airport agents flat out told us that Bangladesh (being a poor third world country) gets older Emirates planes which have frequent mechanical problems. I could not believe what I heard!! We were transported to a hotel at 2 AM in the morning. I was only few miles from my parent’s home. I kept asking Emirates agents if they could tell me when my next flight was going to be. My reasoning was that if we would not fly for another 6/7 hours, I would rather spend the time with my father who was resting home after the surgery. Once again the Emirates agents showed utter lack of competence and compassion. They told me if I went home, it would be on my own risk. That they would leave for the airport without me. We did not fly until 9:30 PM the next day! The whole day I was stuck at the hotel too afraid to go visit my parents based on the warning given by Emirates agent. While at the hotel we were only given a 3 minute free long distance call!! Many passengers on that flight have relatives all over the world. Three minutes free call to allow for making alternate arrangements for airport pickup is a joke in my opinion. We were not even given free access to Internet so we could email our loved once about what had happened. Is Emirates that poor that it could not afford to pay for even limited internet use? I had to pay $10 out of pocket for internet use. By getting on the internet, I was able to find alternate JFK-Houston CO flights that were available since thanks to Emirates mechanical problem I now would miss my CO connection in NY as well. Also, when I was trying to confirm my seat for Dhaka-Dubai-JFK Emirates flights for the next day, I was bumped out of the Dubai-NY flight for a later flight which would cause me to get to NY several hours later and force me to miss the CO connection we had paid for out of pocket. Luckily I had a high ranking govt. official relative who pulled some strings to get me a seat on the flight I should have been on in the first place.

I arrived back in Houston on July 27th evening. Since then between me and my wife, we have called 718-751-4424 at JFK numerous times to get status on my missing luggage. There was very little information. Most of the time nobody even picked up the phone during normal business hours!! We then called CO missing luggage dept. at 281-821-3526 even though it was not their fault. They were 100 times more helpful than the NY number we tried. We finally learned that FEDEX had the package in Houston. Even there we had to go through two days of non-stop tracing and pleading until the luggage was delivered to us yesterday afternoon. Somebody had tempered with my clothing inside and broke open a box of dry bread and made a royal mess of my clothing. I had to send all my clothing to dry cleaners. This will cost another $50.