Folks queue at a flight link desk right after a rainstorm strike Dubai, triggering delays at the Dubai Global Airport, United Arab Emirates, April 17, 2024.
Rula Rouhana | Reuters
The CEO of Emirates airline issued an apology letter to buyers in excess of the weekend just after historic rains in the United Arab Emirates brought on file flooding and mayhem at Dubai’s airport.
Hundreds of flights have been grounded and thousands of prospects ended up stranded as a final result.
“I would like to give our most sincere apologies to each and every buyer who has experienced their travel designs disrupted through this time,” business chief Tim Clark wrote in the letter posted on the airline’s web-site Saturday.
“We know our reaction has been far from excellent. We admit and fully grasp the annoyance of our consumers due to the congestion, lack of data, and confusion in the terminals. We acknowledge that the lengthy queues and hold out occasions have been unacceptable.”
Although the airline’s assistance hub at Dubai Airport remained open, “flooded roads impeded the capacity of our prospects, pilots, cabin crew, and airport staff to access the airport, and also the motion of essential materials like foods and other flight features,” Clark wrote.
A lady and her daughters eat as they wait around for their flight right after a rainstorm strike Dubai, creating delays at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates, April 17, 2024.
Rula Rouhana | Reuters
He mentioned the airline diverted dozens of flights on Tuesday as the worst of the storm raged, and that “in excess of the following 3 days we had to cancel just about 400 flights and delay several much more, as our hub functions remained challenged by staffing and supply shortages.”
Emirates on Wednesday issued a recognize urging tourists not to arrive to the airport, except for in emergency cases. It also suspended verify-ins for all those intended to fly out of Dubai, put an embargo on ticket income and halted connecting flights from other towns to Dubai, leaving some passengers caught all over the world.
Social media lit up with indignant posts from shoppers who explained they acquired no aid from Emirates team and ended up unable to make contact with anybody at the corporation.
“12hrs waiting around on a cancelled flight and 6hrs waiting around at this desk with people fainting, preventing and hoping to hold sane and unquestionably no conversation from Emirates,” a person Instagram person posted, along with a photograph demonstrating a packed crowd of men and women in entrance of Emirates screens at the Dubai airport. The time stamp on the photograph was 7:05 a.m. Friday.
Yet another traveler told CNBC through social media: “It took me 48 several hours to get from London to Baghdad by way of Dubai. Five hours on tarmac in plane [in Dubai], a person hour of which there was no one particular to open the gates of the aircraft bridge. I produced my very own way out … identified a hotel and went back again, waited 12 hours. Received on a flight and they served us almonds!”
Some folks reported they ended up caught at the airport for more than 20 hours, and many others, stranded in foreign metropolitan areas and connecting airports, stated they experienced to ebook their own return household following receiving no assist from Emirates.
TOPSHOT – Cars are stranded on a flooded street in Dubai following large rains on April 18, 2024. Dubai’s giant highways ended up clogged by flooding and its major airport was in chaos as the Middle East economic centre remained gridlocked on April 18, a day just after the heaviest rains on record.
Giuseppe Cacace | Afp | Getty Photographs
Clark said his staff did their ideal to offer with the unprecedented problem, and that it was “all arms-on deck for countless numbers more staff across the organisation to get our operations again on track.”
The CEO wrote that the airline “despatched about 100 staff volunteers to glance immediately after disrupted consumers at Dubai Airport departures and in the transit place, prioritising health-related circumstances, the elderly and other vulnerable travellers.” He included that about 12,000 resort rooms have been provided for clients in Dubai, as perfectly as 250,000 food vouchers issued.
As of Saturday, Emirates’ normal flight schedules had been restored. In the letter, Clark stated the airline nevertheless experienced extra than 30,000 parts of luggage to return to prospects.
“We have put together a taskforce to type, reconcile, and provide some 30,000 items of still left-guiding baggage to their homeowners,” he claimed, introducing that it will “take us some far more days to very clear the backlog of rebooked passengers and baggage,” and inquiring for customers’ “endurance and knowing.”
Clark concluded by pledging to boost the airline’s procedures and thanking his workers for their work, as nicely as supplying “our apologies to every and each customer impacted by this disruption.”
