Historic rains in the UAE last week caused record flooding and mayhem at Dubai’s airport, grounding hundreds of flights and leaving thousands of customers stranded.
“We know our response has been far from perfect. We acknowledge and understand the frustration of our customers,” Emirates Airline CEO Tim Clark wrote.
Social media lit up with angry posts from customers who said they received no help from Emirates staff and were unable to contact anyone at the company.
Hundreds of flights were grounded and thousands of customers were stranded as a result.
“I would like to offer our most sincere apologies to every customer who has had their travel plans disrupted during this time,” company chief Tim Clark wrote in the letter published on the airline’s website Saturday.
While the airline’s service hub at Dubai Airport remained open, “flooded roads impeded the ability of our customers, pilots, cabin crew, and airport employees to reach the airport, and also the movement of essential supplies like meals and other flight amenities,” Clark wrote.
“12hrs waiting on a cancelled flight and 6hrs waiting at this desk with people fainting, fighting and trying to keep sane and absolutely no communication from Emirates,” one Instagram user posted, along with a photo showing a packed crowd of people in front of Emirates screens at the Dubai airport. The time stamp on the photo was 7:05 a.m. Friday.
Some people said they were stuck at the airport for over 20 hours, and others, stranded in foreign cities and connecting airports, said they had to book their own return home after receiving no help from Emirates.
The CEO wrote that the airline “sent over 100 employee volunteers to look after disrupted customers at Dubai Airport departures and in the transit area, prioritising medical cases, the elderly and other vulnerable travellers.” He added that over 12,000 hotel rooms were provided for customers in Dubai, as well as 250,000 meal vouchers issued.
As of Saturday, Emirates’ regular flight schedules had been restored. In the letter, Clark said the airline still had more than 30,000 pieces of luggage to return to customers.
“We have put together a taskforce to sort, reconcile, and deliver some 30,000 pieces of left-behind baggage to their owners,” he said, adding that it will “take us some more days to clear the backlog of rebooked passengers and bags,” and asking for customers’ “patience and understanding.”
Clark concluded by pledging to improve the airline’s processes and thanking his staff for their work, as well as offering “our apologies to each and every customer affected by this disruption.”
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