[hobbler]

Hello I was booked with my family from BKK to VCE on the 14th. Unfortunately the plane in AUH had mechanical issues, which led to us being moved to a new plane, after over an hour delay, with no communication.

The new plane wasn't destined for Venice but Milan. The flight crew said we would be put on a plane for Venice from Milano. We arrived in Milan, again with no communication for what was happening. When there finally was communication, they told us we were being bussed to Venice from Milan and it would take 4 hours. Arrival at Venice was around 2115 in the evening.

The bus had no toilet facilities available, we were provided limited water, food, and opportunity to go to the toilet during the entire ordeal. Chinese tourists grabbed all of the food when the bus driver didn't announce to everyone when he decided to hand it out and they didn't provide enough time to get anything. From the time we took off at 9am in Abu Dhabi we were given an omelette, a small cheese sandwich on the plane, and the opportunity for nothing else until we arrived at Venice because the bus driver messed up the hand-out so much.

My wife, daughter, and I missed all the food because we went to the bathroom. The announcement was that we would only stop for 10 minutes, which then turned into 30 but there wasn't any food left because the Chinese stuffed the sandwiches in their bags. There was no representative from Alitalia during the whole 316km trip. We were dropped off about 300m from the Venice airport entrance, provided no assistance with baggage, or anything.

The best part was that when I finally arrived at Venice airport with my wife, daughter, 3x 30kg bags, I missed the last bus I was authorized (left at 2100) and all the trains to my destination (Vicenza) finished running at 2200, which I couldn't have made due to the transit time to the train station. The only option left was renting a car for €170 or taking a taxi for €170.

This whole experience was ridiculous and makes me never want to fly Etihad again. The only reason I flew this time instead of Qatar was my wife heard Etihad was better. I realize that it was a code share but there were Etihad crew on board the plane who could tell us nothing and only said "make a complaint online if you don't like it" No assistance was provided at all, we were miserable, and we were delayed by a much more than reasonable amount of time. Worse because of the hot bus trip with terrible AC and no toilet facilities so couldn't drink any water comfortably. My daughter is still feeling issues from dehydration.

[Etihad Representative]

Dear Guest, we are sorry to read about your experience. Kindly DM us your booking reference and email address so that we can send your details to our Guest Relations team for an investigation. Thanks *FT