We travelled by Etihad Airlines from LHR to ABU DHABI to KUL.
The flight from Heathrow, London, was delayed. Scheduled departure was at 2.05 pm but we only departed at 3 pm. We had a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur, also on Etihad, from Abu Dhabi – scheduled arrival was at 12.55 am, with scheduled departure at 2.00 am, which we missed.
We had asked the crew if we would be able to catch the connecting flight due to the delay and whether there was anything they could do to help us to leave aircraft expeditiously upon landing and we got a disappointing blank look on their faces.
The ground crew in Abu Dhabi was disappointing and invisible and pretty useless in assisting a group of 27 of us who missed the KUL connection. It was frustrating to see them move so slowly, without any sense of urgency, of purpose, when attending to us, a group of and hungry group of passengers, and this was at 2.30 am in Abu Dhabi.
My wife and I had the same experience in London regarding our seats on LHR with the ground crew at the ticketing counter. We went to LHR a day earlier, anxious about settling a seating issue for my wife (she was not assigned a seat for a ticket which we bought online). We were told, bluntly, by the staff that there was nothing she could do about this and advised that we settle this at check in on our flight day. So we arrived 5 hours early on flight day as advised and at the check in counter, we were advised to proceed to the ticketing counter to have this matter resolved (which we tried to do the day before). This time another staff attended to us and had the matter resolved in about 15 minutes, with the staff who turned us away the day before, manning the next counter!
Our connecting flight from Abu Dhabi to KL was delayed – scheduled departure was at 10.15 am but we only departed at 11.40 am. The aircraft was an old Airbus from Jet Airways – the seat was cramped and the seat cover was stained. The tray was flimsy. There was no port for USB charging. The entertainment was poor – so was the food.
