Remake of the Terminal or a very long trip home from Kuala Lumpur : Emirates Sucks
My return trip from KL was very harsh, to say the least. After a nice diner Saturday night at a Japanese restaurant in Petaling Jaya with Goksin, Richard, Eevon and Angeline, I leave the Palace of the Golden Horses around 11:30. I get to the airport at midnight, and head to the Emirates. Once I get there, I see there is quite a bit of disorder. I show my ticket, and the man on the counter says my reservation was canceled, and that he can only put me on stand by, but there are so many people on stand by that there no chance I can get in. I ask to speak to their manager, and I find that there is a big number of people out there complaining. I try to figure out what is happeneing, but they simply would not respond until the plane leaves... Then, I find out that there was a huge overbooking on the flight, and that only people that reserved their seats got into the plane, and that they wouldn't let go of the funny idea that me or my travel agent have canceled my reservation, so, it is my fault and there is nothing to do about it. I was on my own. I tried to find out when is the next flight I could take, and te answer was pretty much that they can only do stand by for the next few days!!!
I used to be a big fan of the Emirates, but now, all I can say is : Never Again!
By then, it was about 3:30 am, I had no Hotel reservation, and there was no way to book a new ticket, or even to make a Hotel reservation (there was no information counter or Hotel reservation booth open at that hour of the night)... I tried to find some form of Internet Connectivity, and was told that I can find it at Burger King. I went there, and was told it was broken...
The night was very long, trying to find a way to occupy myself until morning comes. Then, around 7 am, I finally find a malaysia airlines ticketing counter open, and I ask for a ticket to Casablance. The answer was that they only sell malaysia airlines tickets, and they do not serve Casablanca. I asked where I could find an open ticketing counter for any other airline, and they said there were none at the airport, and the airline offices in the city are closed on Sunday... So I took a ticket for London (the only European destination that had a morning flight, and I called home to arrange for a London to Casablanca ticket). Since Morocco credit cards are not usable outside of Morocco, My Friend and fellow RD Goksin, who was at the airport by then to take his 9am Istambul flight used his credit card to pay for the ticket. after the customs and police, Richard had arrived to take his flight to Hong Kong, and we sat and had cofee together, then we all wished each others nice trips. By the time I was boarding the plane, I had not yet received confirmation for my onward ticket to Casablanca, and since I did not have a UK visa, was not let into the plane. So I had to go through a very embarrassing situation with the airport authority, and they took copies of all my documents, than I had to go back through immigration, then to the ticketing counter again, and I had to change my London Ticket for a Paris one (I do have a 3 years Schengen visa) which was scheduled at 11:20pm !!!
So after I finished playing Tom Hanks in "The Terminal" for almost 24 hours, I finally could head home through Paris. The 7 hours overlay in Paris seemed like a short coffee break...
main | Rants
9/22/2004 9:38:14 AM UTC 
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