[fearlessfries]

I was supposed to travel to Pakistan after 8 years with Etihad on Friday December 19th. I arrived at the Etihad counter in Pearson International Airport at 7pm. The line was extremely long and moving very slow. It took over an hour and a half to reach the checkin counter. When I got to the counter I was told my hand carry was overweight and that I had to rearrange my bags at the side. At that time I was never informed or advised that they are closing the counter in 15 minutes. However, I entered the check in line at 7pm, 3 hours before my flight. It took me around 10 to 15 minutes to rearrange my bags. After rearranging, I was headed back to the front of the counter but I was stopped by an Etihad employee and told to move to the back of the line. As I went to the back I see that they were still checking in people and issuing tickets to people that were on standby as they had oversold their flight. Before I could reach the counter an employee then told me to leave because the check in closed 5-10 minutes ago. When I got to the counter the check-in employee I spoke with said "I wish I could help you but all the seats have already been booked”, even though I paid in full for my ticket 9 months in advance! They took advantage of me as I was travelling alone and used me to create a profit by overbooking their flight. I was told at that point to call their call centre and they will help me rebook for the next day. When I called their call centre instead of helping me like any other airline would, I was informed by their manager, Stephen Murphy that this was somehow my fault and that I would have to pay $4,000 for a a new ticket and that I would not be able to use my return ticket either unless I paid $4000 on top of my $2000 for the original ticket . When I called their Office in Toronto, the manager I spoke to was nicer and agreed that they were at fault as at the least they should have told me how long to take to rearrange my bags but said that he did not have control over reservations. To conclude, they overbooked their flight, did not communicate vital information with me and they are not interested in offering any compensation, instead want me to give them an additional $4000, totalling $6000 for an economy fare.