[drparthapratimdas@yahoo.c]

we travelled on etihad Ey461 melbourne to london via dubai on 26th june. my wife is gluten intolerant. this was informed and confirmed by etihad before flight by sydney office. but on the day thay provided 'parathas' in flight and passed off as special gluten free meal.
on the flight from dubai to london, flight attendants informed that aus office didnt inform dubai so no special gluten free meal was provided. She ended up going without a proper meal for 22 hours.

this was complained to etihad. it took 3 months for them to acknowledge and reply. they offered apologies and 20,000 points which was never deposited in the account.

now, what do one do about this? I would like to warn fellow travelers about deficiency of this airline and be careful.
well, i am sure to avoid them in future.
other notable feature was heavy handed nature of staff and observed rude behavior with middle eastern people but polite with caucasians? racist.

[jimworcs]

If they acknowledged your complaint and offered 20,000 miles, I think that is a fair remedy. You should write and request that they be credited, enclosing a copy of their email or letter.

On the racism charge... are you suggesting that an airline based and owned in the middle east is biased against people from the middle east? That seems odd...

[drparthapratimdas@yahoo.c]

jimworcs,

to let you know about this incident. a lady in hijab was protesting against her lcd display not working. they called for security staff and threatened to remove her from theaircraft. all this without passenger ever shouting at them or misbehaving. they got male steward to deal with the problem asking female stewards to do other stuff.

being form middle east doesnt guarantee good behavior towards own people!!

i dont have any conflict of interest. i have flown a quite a number of international airways and havent come across this sort of quick heavy handed responses to such common problems.

with regards to remedy- as i memtioned in my email they do acknowledge but it took them a while to provide this without much sincerety and still no repsonse about missing points.

[jimworcs]

I agree it sounds like you have been poorly treated by Etihad in relation to your points and you should not have to battle for a remedy.

Still not convinced on the racism charge. Sounds like rude and arrogant behaviour towards a customer...but where is the racial element? No racial abuse, and no differentiation in how others are treating. Why not just ascribe it to rudeness?

You were there, I was not... but from the way you describe it.. I can't see it.

[drparthapratimdas@yahoo.c]

thanks anyways for the support.

[BKK_FLYER]

Hi,

I agree.. If you were promised 20,000 units then that's what you should receive-- full stop... and you should get it within reasonable time.. what's reasonable? In my mind, barring special circumstances, about 4 to 6 weeks.. not longer..

As to the other issues-- which the OP doesn't specially label as 'racism' but I do think could be generally labeled as such.. my thoughts are this..

COULD it have been racism? Yes, absolutely it could have.. But I also think that the ODDS that it was are low.. To me, racism says that the employee acted in a manner SOLELY based on the other persons perceived nationality or similar characteristic..

None of us where there to see the full exchange and all the details.. in matters like this, I do think that details DO matter.. I also note that only from what the OP writes, and without more clarification- it also seems as if the OP too wasn't privy to the full context of the conversations or interactions..

So, for a claim of racism to be made-- and knowing that it is a rather serious and "heavy" allegation, given what's been disclosed so far, I don't see anything that rises to the level of discrimination.. Perhaps less-than-professional behavior, but again, I think it's fair to note that the OP really wasn't privy to the entire conversation either.. and I think that like a lot of things in life, there is commonly two sides to most all stories.

Travel Safe,