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I seldom make written complaints about service, but find it very necessary to inform you of the substandard and horrible service provided by Etihad Airways. I will NEVER in my life fly Etihad Airways and will make it a point to inform everyone I know that is flying NOT to fly with Etihad.

The five of us started our travel back home after a two week journey through India and Thailand. It was my brother, my husband, myself and my 5 year old twin daughters. The five of us started our journey on Air India which we have zero complaints on, but for our return flight we took Etihad and paid about $2500 each on a one way flight back to Chicago, totaling about $12,000 for a one way flight to Chicago. For your reference, I was Flying Etihad 151 from Abu Dhabi to Chicago.

As we got on the flight, we saw a lady standing there and her sign said โ€œFlying Nannyโ€ โ€“ my husband said to her, โ€œThat sounds cool, what is a flying Nannyโ€- she didnโ€™t answer. He asked a second time, she still ignored us. I asked, what is a flying nanny. She replied, I take care of the kids. We thought, what a great concept, and ill look forward to her visiting my kids. However, no one on the entire 15 hour flight back to Chicago every stopped by to greet my kids. I later came back and researched what a flying nanny on Etihad airways does, and this is what I found:

"Our specially trained Flying Nannies have been approved by Norland, the UKโ€™s renowned childcare training college for early years professionals. Theyโ€™re here to provide an extra pair of hands โ€“ whether itโ€™s helping to get the children settled for bed, keeping them entertained or simply offering advice and support to parents.

Every Flying Nanny will be equipped with a goody bag of games and activities to help keep the kids occupied, easing the pressure on you. They might be making their own hand puppets, trying origami for the first time, or joining other children in a drawing competition. They could even find themselves enjoying face-painting, learning a magic trick or having fun with food.

The type of activities your children get involved in will be down to the creativity and ingenuity of both themselves and their Flying Nanny. Yet, even in the confines of an aircraft, the options are endless and our Flying Nannies are specially trained to make the most of whatโ€™s available onboard.

And whilst we canโ€™t take them off your hands completely, as we must cater to the needs of every family onboard, we hope our โ€˜Flying Nannyโ€™ goes someway to making your experience with Etihad that little bit more relaxing and enjoyable."

Your airline is falsely advertising a service that it does not even provide and the personality of these people in these positions are completely awful.

Once the menu cards were given to us for the food service, the first food service took 2 hours to get. I asked our hostess, my kids are falling asleep, when will they get a meal. Everyone around us got their food. The air hostess came and said to me, we only have the daal option available. I told her that I did not want daal and that was completely unacceptable as I wanted two kids meals and the rest of us wanted the lamb option. I told her it didnโ€™t matter where on the aircraft we were sitting, why was I only given the daal option. She came back and said, โ€œI was able to find chicken for you.โ€ I asked her how all of a sudden you were able to find Chicken now. I still demanded my first choice but only ended up with chicken. No kids meals were provided to my kids. It was interesting that we were told that only daal was available. It was as if, lets just say that to as many people and see which ones donโ€™t say anything. Why give our menu cards with meal options if you cannot even get half way through the plane without upsetting passengers. Iโ€™m sorry, Iโ€™m not an ordinary person that is going to keep my mouth shut and have you treat passengers like me in a substandard way. I paid for a seat like everyone else and I expect the same meal you gave to the people around me. The persons in our rows got Lamb biryani, then why didnโ€™t we?

I spent additional money on your flight by spending $300 on duty free and then purchased wireless internet for the entire flight. Clearly donโ€™t have a problem to spend the money, but expect to get the services that I pay for.

Your flight crew definitely does not have their game together. They never came around to pick up any of the garbage from the passengers. The entire aircraft was filthy. Luke warm towels (were suppose to be hot towels) were given to freshen up and never picked back up, same with empty plastic wrappers, etc. I started to collect all my garbage behind my seat when no one came to collect it and noticed it their at the end of the flight. See photo below. It was absolutely filthy to be travelling in your aircraft where no one cleaned as you go. By the end of the flight, it was disgusting to be on there.

We had beverage service at some other point, my husband felt nauseous and asked for sprite, to my surprise, you had ran out of sprite. I asked for a pepsi and surprisingly, that too had run out? Seriously? How can you run out of the most basic items, or is your staff too lazy to go and get things they run out of. Absolutely unacceptable.

The worst part about the entire flight was about three hours before landing, I went to the bathroom. To my surprise, there was no toilet paper, no paper towels, no tissue. It was worst than an street indian toilet. No one told us this was a โ€œBRING YOUR OWN TOILET PAPER FLIGHT.โ€ Luckily, I had taken my bag with me which had baby wipes, otherwise, this bathroom was absolute filth and disgusting for a female to be in. I walked to the back of the airplane, and found the crew having a big party, laughing and giggling while their aircraft looked like filth and their passengers had to use disgusting toilets. Is it your union contract that prevents you from cleaning the bathrooms??? I immediately asked to speak to a flight supervisor. After 40 minutes a gentleman walked over, his tag said Manjula. I asked him if he was the Flight Supervisor and he said he was the โ€œEconomy Supervisor.โ€ I addressed all my issues to him, the substandardmeal service, the non-existent and rude flying nanny, the running out of all the sodas, the filthy garbage all around me, the disgusting bathroom with no toilet paper. He apologized and said, โ€œI will make a report.โ€ I gave him my business card, I told him, I operate hotels and restaurants for a living and their service was way below my expectations from a fellow member of the hospitality industry. I told him to have a superior management person contact me or I will be taking these complaints to the world of social media. Iโ€™m not surprised that I didnโ€™t hear back, and I hope itโ€™s not a surprise that you are hearing from me.

The second worst part, after I spoke to the supervisor, the flying nanny comes to my seat and starts to scream and says, โ€œif you have a problem with me, you need to talk to me, not my supervisor!โ€ I politely said, if I wanted to talk to you in the first place, I would have, I have addresses my concerns to your supervisor. To which she says, โ€œwell, what are those issues, and you never asked me anything when boarding the flight.โ€ I told her I donโ€™t like your tone and demeanor and im not going to get into all my issues yet with another person on this flight. She abruptly walked away. The rest of the one hour before landing, I heard the flight crew laughing, giggling and likely making fun of me as I couldnโ€™t understand their language but body gestures are not difficult to figure out.

Your flight did not have one vacant seat as this is considered your high peak flying season. You price gauge the customer during this busy time, yet your crew is not equipped with the customer service training not the adequate amount of meals and supplies to provide acceptable service. I feel insulted by your staff. I feel cheated by the lack of service received on your aircraft. I demand a partial refund for my flight and an apology.

Monetary Loss: $12000.

Location: Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi

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Guest

We've just read your report and at first we thought it was our flight minus the kids. You even brought up matteres that we too experienced but forgot to put in as there were so many complaints.

I went through the proper channels and got negative response and I see they've read my on line complaint and want me to re contact them.

From past behaviour they will give me the same old generic reply that their feedback to us was appropriate and adequate. At least we don't feel alone after reading your flight from ***...Rai

Sabin Xox

That nanny sure told you!

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