Why Etihad Airways Deserves a Round of Applause!

My son was planning to return to Toronto from Chennai with his wife and children after attending his brother-in-law’s wedding in Coimbatore. They had decided to fly to Canada on 27 June at 1.15 a.m. and reach Toronto at 4 p.m. (local time) after a 4-hour transit in Frankfurt.

As my daughter also lives in Canada, and my son’s housewarming function was due on 13 July, my better half, and me decided to travel to Canada to spend some time with our children. The drawback of deciding on the last moment was that there were no seats available in the economy class and the business class was harshly expensive.

We booked our tickets with Etihad Airways for the same day i.e. 27 June. We had to start from Chennai at 4.55 a.m. and reach Toronto at 4.15 p.m. (local time) with a much shorter transit time in Abu Dhabi.

That day, we saw our son’s flight take off and waited for our check in. There was an announcement that there would be a delay of almost 4 hours due to the late arrival of the incoming flight from Abu Dhabi.

That led to utter confusion as the passengers had onward flights to catch from Abu Dhabi for USA, Canada and Europe. We expected alternate arrangements on our arrival in Abu Dhabi.

The reputation of Etihad Airways with respect to baggage handling was not very hopeful. Numerous cases of missing/late baggage were doing the rounds even as we were waiting for our flights to depart.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi at noon (local time) and a host of officials from Etihad Airways greeted us. They expressed their regret for the changed schedule and handed us boarding passes to Brussels for 2.15 a.m. the following day along with boarding passes to Toronto from there. The new ticket said that we would reach Toronto at 1.00 a.m. (local time) on 28 June.

That was not all! Each of us got a hotel stay at the airport for the following 12 hours. In addition, Etihad offered us complimentary lunch and dinner coupons, which could have been availed at any restaurant at the airport. We enjoyed sumptuous Indian meals!

Etihad Airways looked after us very well and deserve compliments for the care taken to minimise the misery as much as possible. That was a refreshing break in what would otherwise have been a 15-hour nonstop flight from Abu Dhabi to Toronto. Now, we also had a stopover in Brussels!

My son was there to pick us up at Terminal 3, Toronto Airport, as he was aware of the changed travel plans mentioned on the website of Etihad Airways.

Overall, a very good job done by Etihad Airways!