[swathigs]

Hi,

I'm Swathi Shenoy, an Indian student enrolled for a master's program at Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh, USA. In order to arrive well in time for my course kick-off, I left from Bangalore International airport on May 3, 2016. Details of my flight are attached alongside this e-mail.

As this was my first travel to the US as a student, I had called the Etihad Airways helpline weeks in advance to plan my packing during which I had specifically asked if carrying a laptop bag in addition to a cabin suitcase would be permitted. I was promised that this would be acceptable and I had planned my luggage accordingly.
However, while checking-in at the Etihad Airways counter at the Kempegowda International Airport on May 3, 2016, the representative at the counter was highly reluctant to let me carry two pieces of luggage. I was asked to open, transfer and reorganize my luggage several times, which was very embarrassing! Even after a lot of requesting and explaining,to the Etihad airline representatives, I ended up paying an additional 99$ dollars for the extra weight that amounted from transferring the contents of my hand luggage to my check-in luggage.

Jut so you know,

1) Emirates Airlines was offering me a student allowance of an 'additional' check-in luggage of 23kgs. ( 3 *23=69kg). I still went for Etihad because I was under the impression that it had a good customer service reputation.

2) A lot of my classmates who travelled on Etihad on May 4, managed to bring additional hand luggage (that weighed upto 17kgs!!) without having to pay the additional 99$.I'm highly unhappy with this disparity.

3) As mentioned,this was my first travel as a student and I received nothing close to empathy from the airline staff who completely contradicted what the Etihad Helpline staff had promised several weeks ago.

All of the above have majorly harmed your reputation in my eyes and not only do I plan to reconsider ever travelling in this airlines again but I also plan to warn fellow students/travelers about the very poor customer service.

I also request you to provide me a refund of the 99$ that I paid as I believe it's extremely unfair that I was charged this fee while several fellow students carried hang baggages+Laptop that totaled to much more than what I was originally carrying.

-Swathi Shenoy