[heag]

I had booked my ticket Mumbai Houston Mumbai by Lufthansa. I had no issues during Mum – Houston flight but during my return journey on 12th Nov 2011 travelling from Houston to Mumbai via Frankfurt, I had horrible experience with Lufthansa Airline staff at Frankfurt airport. I and my wife were put on flight CO 46 a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Frankfurt. This was due to some internal arrangement code sharing arrangement between Lufthansa had with Continental Airlines. Now this flight got delayed at Houston itself by 30 min. After reaching Frankfurt the aircraft pilot parked the aircraft wrongly and due to which we got stuck up inside the flight for 30 min. Finally we alighted the aircraft by rear doors through stairs and were brought to the Frankfurt terminal by bus. This took around 20 min. Due to this delay we missed our connecting flight LH 756 Frankfurt Mumbai. This was not due to any of our fault. Now when we went to Lufthansa counter to get some help we were in for rude shock. The airline staff said they were not responsible for the delay and now we have to wait 24 hrs at Frankfurt airport for our next flight. All this without food, water and any hotel booking. They were not ready to talk even and were extremely rude. We had to explain to them that we had booked our journey through Lufthansa and were put on Continental Airlines flight by them; they need to help us as it is impossible for us to sit at the airport without any assistance for 24 hrs. But still they kept on insisting that they had nothing to do with this and they cannot help us. We had to literally fight with them and explain them that we had paid money to Lufthansa Airlines and not Continental and so they need to help us. Finally after lot of argument and persuasion the Lufthansa staff called Continental staff. The Continental staff finally agreed to put us on to alternate Air India flight and agreed to give us some meal coupons. All the time both airlines attitude was as if they were doing us a big favor. Finally after lots of hassle and 40 hr journey we landed at Mumbai Airport on 14th Nov night via Delhi. The overall experience with Lufthansa staff and Continental airlines staff at Frankfurt Airport was bad and the most surprising is their insisting is they can do nothing as this delay. We are frequent travellers and have travelled a lot through different airlines but this was our first experience with Lufthansa.