Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Emirates airlines practices citizenship discrimination

From the reservations website of Emirates Airlines
(Not sure if it's very clear - click on the image to get a larger one.)


I'm fine with airlines reserving flights for specific purposes (say, Umrah), first because there's a lot of punctual pressure at particular periods, but also because it makes logistic sense, with them landing in a different terminal in Jeddah, different immigration procedures, etc.

What I cannot stomach however is how Emirates would be rude enough to put 'Umrah passangers and GCC nationals'. This is the quite repulsive, I say. (GCC is Gulf Cooperation Council, btw). So Gulfies have a preference over other nationalities? What the fuck???

Imagine Air France writing 'Flight reserved for Western Europeans' on their website and saying that 'other nationalities will have their booking cancelled with no guarantee of rebooking anywhere else'.
This is how insane this is.

I never liked Emirates. They are overpriced, their food is barely above average, their personnel is rude, (and the flight attendants are not as cute as they advertise:) - and this is one more reason for me to despise them.

Shame! Down with Emirates Airlines!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Get real Mohamed, an Umrah passenger could be from anywhere not just the ME, other airlines have the same policies for their Haj flights too.

Mohamed said...

Anonymous, perhaps I wasn't clear -- i'm not talking about the Umrah or Hajj passenger thing, i think this actually makes complete sense;

what pissed me off though was the the "Umrah passengers AND GCC NATIONALS" --> so it's the fact that, BESIDES Umrah passengers - may God accept their Prayers :) - the only non-pilgrims allowed on board are GCC nationals...

So I, for one, can't board this flight if i'm going for a visit, whereas my Bahraini colleague can.

Rachell said...

Thanks for letting me know...

Shaykhspeara Sha'ira said...

What can I say, the priviliged people of the Gulf...

Anonymous said...

@Shaykhspeara Sha'ira
Wait till the oil runs out, you bunch wont be anything better than the camel humping Towelheads you used to be,before the british discovered oil in the middle east.

Mo-ha-med said...

Anonymous - the only camel-humper I see here is you.