Dubai-based airline Emirates committed a goof-up when it sent an offensive message to a passenger, albeit by mistake and took almost a month to apologise to the passenger.
Claire Finch had boarded Manchester-Dubai Emirates flight, apparently in March and was upset when she got the message that was supposed to be an internal communication. The angry passenger sought compensation through the Resolver website and got €600 but the incident left the Cheshire resident "disappointed and disillusioned," the Independent reported on Monday after the woman contacted the publication.
The embarassing episode did not end with the first email; Finch got a second one with the subject line "WTF" that read: "... is she on about?!? If you've put it in the letter, what the fuk [sic] does she need to do!!!"
A third message also reached her with the same subject line, but this time it was for recalling it.
The airline acknowledged her complaint and apologised on April 24. "Firstly, please accept my personal apologies for any dissatisfaction that you have experienced with Emirates. Naturally, I was most concerned to discover that you had inadvertently been copied on an inappropriate internal communication, which was unrelated to yourself or any other passenger," one of the carrier's executives wrote to Finch.
The executive went on to "confirm that this matter has already been dealt with internally with the employee concerned."
However, Finch was not convinced by the response, saying she did not expect such a goof-up from a reputed airline like Emirates. "I feel very disappointed and disillusioned with Emirates. They hold themselves up to be one of the more upmarket airlines but their customer service is nothing short of shocking. I fully accept that mistakes happen but when they do, a company is measured on how they put them right," she told the Independent.
"I feel Emirates have actually treated me with contempt and if it were not for The Independent's intervention, I would still be awaiting a response," she further said.
A few days ago, Emirates "falsely" implicated a British investor of carrying cocaine on board, leading to her interrogation for almost three hours before she was let off.
The incident happened on May 9 when 43-year-old Caren Harmon was travelling from London to Johannesburg. At the Dubai International Airport, she had disembarked for a connecting flight but was shocked that the police there was waiting for her, after being tipped off by the Emirates crew.
"The only explanation they (crew) gave me was that I was seen looking through my bag, sniffing my nose and touching my nose, which is quite normal on a long flight with air conditioning. They implied to the police that I had been taking cocaine, as if I would do something like that. I was terrified," she wrote on her Facebook post, according to the Daily Mail.
Harmon had taken a pill to stay calm as prescribed by her doctor but she was told the prescription was "illegal" and could potentially land her in jail.
