The people complaining about getting out of Dubai- genuine question

[ChefsKisser]

This isn’t another Dubai bashing thread but just something I’ve been wondering about.

There are lots of Brits stuck in UAE following the sudden missiles etc and I completely understand how stressful it must have been and how desperate they must have felt to get home. People separated from kids, expenses from extended trip etc. What I don’t understand is a lot of posts and sad faces on daily mail of ‘no one helped us’ ‘it was a shit show’ ‘we were scrabbling to get out’.

this whole thing only kicked off just over a week ago. Missiles and drones were constantly coming and being shot down by all accounts. Criticism of either UAE or British government to not have an immediate evacuation plan when planes couldn’t really fly safely seems really odd to me. I know being advised to shelter or sit tight must be awful but given that the war seemed to start out of nowhere why do people think they should be flown home immediately with no difficulty? Surely just the logistics and coordination of getting thousands of people to loads of different locations while managing an unsafe airspace- that was always going to be tricky??

Well we are stuck in UAE right now, as part of a transit flight from somewhere else. Zero desire ever to visit UAE. Our carrier, Etihad, has been disgraceful. Cancelled flight after flight without helping out in any way with food or accommodation. They could if they wanted to. We were informed at the flight check in desk that we wouldn't be allowed onto the flight unless we had a hotel booked for the sudden new long delay. Everyone was panic-buying the first hotel that came up on Booking.com.
I honestly think it is a ploy to get money back into UAE in the absence of tourists. Delay transit flights by 26 hours and enforce hotel and taxi bookings or you are not allowed onto your flight home!
I call that extortion.
And our MP kindly intervened to make our insurers promise to extend our medical and baggage loss cover for fair costs not the extortionate £500 for a week they were trying to charge.
People stuck here are severely out of pocket. It's cost us hundreds of pounds just to get home, and thousands in a non-refundable emergency ticket bought when Etihad were cancelling flight after flight with no honest communication with passengers and lots a of random threats to cancel existing bookings unless you jump through sudden hoops like agreeing to a rescheduled flight within hours, despite being unable to access their phoneline or website to do so.
The emergency ticket, bought through another airline can clearly be sold on by them as people are still trying to get home. But they won't refund us the money. Just pocket it. The profiteering is really what is upsetting people.

Etihad hasn't offered us so much as a bottle of free water.
I would never use them again. They have zero duty of care legally or ethically to their passengers.

I would strongly advise everyone from now on to use BA or an airline bound by the European ethical code that promises to help stranded passengers with food, accommodation and repatriation as priority in an emergency.

@TonissisterI’m so sorry that sounds horrendous. I hope you get home very soon.

@bluejelly Thank you.

I was actually on holiday in Dubai when this all kicked off and was due to fly home the next day.

I wasn’t expecting the British Government to get me home, I had booked through Emirates Holidays, so they’re who I expected to help.

I understand the situation was sudden and out of their control, but the issue was the complete lack of proactive communication. At no point did they contact us or arrange with the hotel to extend our stay. Instead we spent hours and hours trying to get through to them ourselves just to find out what was going on.

The biggest problem came when flights started leaving again. There didn’t seem to be any order to who was being put on them. It felt like pure luck whether you got a seat on a flight that actually took off. If your flight was cancelled again, you were basically pushed to the back of the queue.

When our third flight was cancelled, we were told they couldn’t get us booked onto another one for 6 more days. Luckily I saw a new flight had been added, called and quickly got us booked on.

There didn’t seem to be any logical system like prioritising people who were due to leave first, or people who might be vulnerable. Instead some people who weren’t even meant to fly home yet were getting on the first flights out.

This matters because they’re sticking to a policy of only covering £150 per room per night for three nights. But we were stranded for five nights and our room cost £295 a night.

I saved for a long time to go on this holiday, I don’t suddenly have the funds to cover the extra accommodation, food, new airport transfers, extended car park stays etc. so we’ve been left significantly out of pocket.

And whilst hotels were told they couldn’t kick us out. They wouldn’t extend our stay unless we had means to pay.

My sister has said similar about Emirates. She was due to take a connection via Dubai, she’s had to get the first shorter connection to Bangkok and then has been left to sort herself with accommodation and flights from there. She is hopefully home in a couple of days via Oman now.

Hope you get sorted quickly.

I suspect people who holiday in Dubai in March are mostly the upper end of the income bracket and used to good service. Being told to shelter in place while the missiles rain down is a shock. They are, not unreasonably, scared.
But if they choose to take holidays in one of the most unstable areas of the world, they shouldn't be surprised.
I travelled a lot pre-children, knowing I had the resources and a lack of family commitments at home. I was held up at gunpoint in Africa and got caught in the US with 9/11. But I had the resources to cope and no dcs staying with their dgps.

Since ds arrived, we haven't left Western Europe.

With Trump & Putin in power, I wouldn't go anywhere near northern South America, Eastern Europe, Middle East, or the Far East, until ds no longer needs me.

I have a lot of sympathy for those out there on business or transiting through though. Difficult to avoid.