Day 23 (2023) Night flight from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt/Main

23.4.2023

Day 19

At midnight we are at the airport, return our car to Europcar and check in our luggage. We try to resolve our seat problem at the counter, but the staff member cannot assist us. He says the plane is full, everyone has checked in, and he cannot change it. However, we do not see it that way and my husband causes a scene.

As I said, we are frequent flyers, have traveled around the globe with the kids, from Africa, North America, Asia to Australia. We have NEVER reserved seats because in 99% of cases the airlines have always seated us as a FAMILY "automatically together".

We are referred to the "boss" 3 seats away. My husband expresses his frustration. The man reacts sympathetically, and 2 female employees also take care of our problem. We explain that we had the same issue at departure, but we were not willing to pay €80 per seat as a "booked family with 4 full-rate tickets" just to sit together. Hello???? You can try to rip off others, but not us!

The lady tells us that she is sorry, they have a new computer system and there are problems with it. A family with 2 young children joins us from behind, they have the same problem. The kindergarten children are seated alone in the rear section of the plane, and the parents are spread out in the front. The mother of the young children is also bewildered and angry.

Next, they try to lecture us that it is because we did NOT check in online. We present our screenshots from Friday and prove the opposite. So now we really want seats together! Outrageous!

After 30 minutes, the lady prints out 4 new boarding passes for us and apologizes. Now we are all sitting in one row, 2 & 2. So not all next to each other, but that's not a problem.

I am sitting by the window, the daughter next to me, and a Japanese woman next to her. My husband and son are sitting in the middle. In front of me, a mother is sitting with a child and arguing with the flight attendant. Guess what? Her child is actually sitting elsewhere....

Our Boeing 787 takes off on time and I fall asleep immediately - I am so tired...

Unfortunately, I don't understand Etihad's catering strategy on the night flight. I am woken up at 3 o'clock and asked if I want something to drink, at 3:30 there's a baguette - but I'm not hungry at all.

Since the flight is unfortunately quite turbulent, it shakes quite often and the seatbelt sign keeps going on and off, and I am repeatedly woken up to either lift the seat or buckle up (even though I am always buckled up and the belt is visible above the blanket).

At 5 o'clock, there is coffee, at 6 o'clock breakfast... that's the end of the night. Very restful...

At 8:50am - minus the time difference, so 6:50am - we land in Frankfurt. Home sweet home!

Next year for Easter, we will hopefully go back to our 2nd home in Abu Dhabi!