[ronhayne]

My wife & I booked a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Rome return between 24-09-2016 & 06-10-2016. A complete nightmare, in Abu Dhabi, the head office of Etihad Airways, we were placed on a flight(EY7065) operated by Alitalia. Over the next two hours sitting in the aircraft we were informed that the push truck (used to position the aircraft for takeoff) had broken down & that the hook used to attach it to the aircraft could not be released. Two "engineers" were busy on the job & after two hours released the hook, interestingly, a passenger (hi Kim are you out there) who has avionics experience said that with a couple of simple tools he would have released the hook in 15 minutes! We now appeared to be ready to go, not so fast. After some time we were informed that one engine was faulty, & so after four hours in the aircraft we were asked to deplane. I might add at this point that we were travelling business class & had to embark & disembark the aircraft via steps to the tarmac, this also happened in Abu Dhabi on the return trip, not good enough Etihad on your home ground.
We were then put on a flight to Frankfurt, not the original route, & were assured that our baggage was on board. In Frankfurt we were also told(by Alitalia staff) that our cases were on board for our next leg to Rome. This was all lies, we waited at the baggage carousel in Rome, no baggage. We had a luxury cruise to catch which we had missed. We had to stay in an hotel in Rome for the night, an additional expense & arrange for a car & driver to take us to the ships next port of call, Piombino, another 550 Euro expense.
4 days later, in Monaco, we received our luggage due only to the efforts of the Crystal Cruises & Air France staff who have nothing to do with Etihad.
On the return journey to Heathrow, also operated by Alitalia, flight no EY7005, we were late in arriving & Alitalia staff there refused to help & a lady from another airline helped us to get boarding passes.
No Etihad, I will not fly with you again, or recommend you while you have partners like Alitalia.