Disappointment with Emirates

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we discovered that one wheel of our stroller was missing on our Emirates flight to Birmingham from Malaysia. We were really disappointed as the Hauck Esprit Speed Sun pushchair was brand new and the first and only time we had used it was in KLIA - right up to the door of the plane where the Emirates people had taken it away for storage in the cargo compartment.

Anyway, at Birmingham, I had filed a Damaged Luggage Report with OCS, the repair agent for Emirates. I received a letter from OCS after a few days, asking me to call a number. A guy answered and we went through the steps and they told me that they would have someone pick up the stroller. He also asked me the value of the stroller. I answered that it cost me around 60 pounds (after conversion from Malaysian Ringgits) IN Malaysia.

Didn't think much about it then but this was a major mistake as I learnt later. They told me that they would send me a replacement within 7 days.

Days passed by.

A few weeks later I received a letter from OCS telling me that they couldn't repair the buggy and that they will inform Emirates to send us a settlement.

After nearly a month, I received a letter from Emirates along with a claim settlement for 60 pounds. This is when my wife really got mad with me. She was like: "Do you know how much a good stroller costs in the UK?" Actually I didn't and was dismayed when I found out later. On checking around, I found that the cheapest (comparable) strollers cost at least 75 pounds (Mothercare, Maclaren).

Tried talking to the people at Emirates. My wife was really angry and blasted the guy on the other end. Her reasoning was that the right value is the cost of a comparable pushchair here in the UK and not in Malaysia (where it is way cheaper). Unless of course, Emirates provides us a return ticket back to Malaysia to buy a buggy and of course they are not going to do that. but he asked us to file a complaint in writing.

I finally persuaded my wife to just accept the amount. After all, I was the one who told them the amount.

A lesson here. If your airline damages anything and you want to claim for damages, inflate the cost. Keep in mind, that they are not going to pay the hardships costs (Just imagine - In a foreign country, emergency trips to the doctor 45 minutes walk away, with two kids - one weighing 17.5KG and another 8KG, when you don't even have a car and then it starts raining).

As we needed a good pushchair urgently, we looked around on ebay. After a few unsuccessful bids, we finally won a Quinny Zap (2nd hand) for £73/. Drove down to Leicester and collected the pushchair from the seller's house.

Quite happy with our purchase as it is in excellent condition and a new one costs around £150 .

Given below are the pros and cons of the Quinny Zapp.
The positive:
1. Very light weight (only 8.8kg)
2. Very compact when folded. It is after all the smallest folded pushchair in the world (L:69cm/B:27cm)


The negative:
1. Doesn't recline.
2. Doesn't have a carry basket.

Extremely disappointed with Emirate's service. They damaged our brand new expensive pushchair. They failed to give us a replacement within 7 working days as promised. In the end we can't buy a comparable pushchair with the money they are going to give us.

I will be sending the completed claims forms tomorrow.

Tags: Emirates OCS Pushchair Hauck Quinny Zapp