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Friday 1 August 2014

Don't fly Emirates Airlines - Emirates sucks

I have been in the UK for a little over a week, having completed the first, and I had hoped the last, of my 90-day visits to Liz, Julie and the grandchildren. I fly back to Boston on Monday for another 90 days. I just wish that Homeland Security or Immigration or whoever back in the States would pull finger and get on with processing my I-130 and all it implies. Flying backwards and forwards across the Pond does not come cheap. Which brings me on to my title piece.

Yes. Emirates Airlines really sucks. They are completely unhelpful and remind me of the Middle Eastern attitude that I experienced in Abu Dhabi 25 years ago. Here's what happened just 3 months ago. I flew with Emirates from Johannesburg to Dubai and after a 4-hour stand-over from Dubai to Boston at the end of April. While disembarking in Dubai mu laptop was left behind on the Boeing 777 - something that I immediately realized and did something about. This included reporting the incident, contacting the aircraft cleaners, the police and the lost luggage department. I was assisted in this regard by a very helpful Emirates ground hostess.

Once at my destination I phoned Emirates, and was given an email address to write to, which I did, explaining the incident carefully and the lost laptop in detail. On 1st May I received an email from Emirates advising me that my laptop had been found, and that if I would advise them of the airport to send it to, they would forward it sine mora. I wrote back with those details (Boston Logan) immediately. Imagine my surprise when I received a further email a day or two later advising me that my laptop had been forwarded to some third party at the King Fahad International Airport in Saudi Arabia.

Naturally this sparked off a number of emails from me to various Emirates departments, asking for the situation to be clarified. To this day I have yet to receive a reply - in fact I have been completely ignored. The whole business reeks of incompetence and a complete lack of interest in helping out a desperate passenger. I estimate that the value of hardware and data that went missing is far in excess of $10,000, and if anyone can recommend a lawyer who might be willing to take on a case against Emirates I would be most grateful.

My laptop case and laptop contained more than Internet 6,500 articles, landing pages and entire website content written by myself, an unfinished copy of my memoirs, photographs and other memorabilia collected over a wide span of years, a 500 gB external drive,  hard copy documents such as birth certificates and other important documentation. 

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