BANGKOK, THAILAND – A cancelled Etihad flight during the Iran conflict left an Italian traveller stranded in Thailand, highlighting how digital customer service channels failed in a real crisis.
The email arrived – the help never did
A traveller from South Tyrol had booked his Etihad ticket early, paid for a proper fare and enjoyed his holiday in Thailand when the Iran war disrupted his route home. Etihad cancelled his flight and sent a polite email assuring him that rebooking would be simple via the airline’s website. What followed was not a quick change of plans but a drawn-out struggle through dead chat windows and unanswered hotlines.
On the website, the passenger found his flight greyed out, unclickable and effectively dead. There was no button, no action and no way forward, despite the email’s promise of easy rebooking. Whether this was intentional or a technical failure remained unclear, but he was stuck and turned next to the live chat.
Three hours on hold – stuck at position twelve
In the live chat, he entered his request and received an automated greeting before being placed in a virtual queue. The display counted down from position eighteen to fifteen and fourteen, until he eventually reached position twelve. Then nothing changed for one, two, then three hours.
Position twelve appeared to be less a number than a permanent holding state, signalling that help was supposedly on the way but never actually arriving. After three hours without progress, he gave up on the chat and reached for the phone, hoping someone, somewhere, would pick up.
Bangkok office closed – WhatsApp instead
His next attempt was the Etihad office in Bangkok, whose number and details were listed online. The recorded message on the line informed him that the office was closed, not temporarily or due to renovation, but simply closed for good. At the end came a courteous instruction to contact customer service via WhatsApp.
He opened WhatsApp, entered the number and started a chat, only to be greeted by a bot rather than a human agent. The automated system struggled with his Business Class ticket, which was not treated as a standard fare. For such cases, the bot informed him, he would have to call directly in Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi silent – while the Baht kept flowing
Calling Abu Dhabi from Thailand proved expensive, as international calls quickly consumed real Baht. The traveller waited in a telephone queue familiar to anyone who has called an airline from abroad: on-hold music, time ticking away and rising costs, but no human voice. The pattern repeated: holding, music, no answer, and eventually he hung up.
He had booked an expensive flight, followed all the rules and now found himself wrestling with a greyed-out website button, an unresponsive chat, an overloaded WhatsApp bot and a hotline that never picked up. All of this happened because war in the Middle East affected his flight path.
Bus to Bangkok – for an office that no longer exists
At some point he gave up on screens and remote channels. He packed his bags, boarded a bus from Pattaya to Bangkok and headed to Suvarnabhumi Airport, where Etihad’s website still listed a physical office. The journey was long, but he travelled in the hope that a face-to-face meeting could resolve his problem.
At the airport information desk he learned that the Etihad office no longer existed; it had been dismantled and closed. Staff advised him simply to wait until 16:00, when the check-in counters were due to open and staff there might be able to help. It was midday, leaving him four hours and several cups of coffee to fill the time.
Refunds sound fair – but can be a trap
Etihad did offer the option of a refund for the cancelled flight. On paper, this appeared to be a fair solution. In practice, anyone in Thailand needing to return home quickly discovered that a refund could turn into a financial trap.
An Economy one-way ticket from Bangkok to Milan currently cost around 90,000 Baht for travel within the next week, according to the account in the text. Ticket prices were expected to drop back to about 20,000 Baht only by mid-April. For travellers unable to wait weeks, the cost difference was dramatic.
Anyone taking the refund and insisting on an early return would therefore have to pay a significant supplement out of pocket. The South Tyrolean traveller could wait and calculate his options. But for families with school-age children, working partners and originally affordable return tickets, the likely outcome was clear: they would have to cover the fare difference themselves.
Direct flights: more expensive, sometimes safer
The situation also highlighted the role of routing choices. Thai Airways operated direct flights to Frankfurt and Lufthansa to Munich, avoiding stopovers and transit through conflict zones. Routes via the Gulf region were often cheaper, as long as there were no missile attacks, airspace closures or sudden cancellation emails.
When events escalated, the benefits of a direct flight with a home-country carrier became apparent, not only in terms of shorter travel time. The real test was customer service during disruption, when travellers urgently needed human assistance. At such moments, it became clear whether an airline provided accessible staff or left passengers to navigate bots and endless queues.
To be continued – with an uncertain ending
At the time described, the traveller was still at Bangkok airport, drinking coffee and waiting for the check-in counter to open at 16:00. It remained unclear whether staff would quickly rebook him onto another flight or whether a new round of problems would begin. His case was still unresolved.
The story was presented not as an isolated incident but as an example of what could go wrong when airlines outsourced customer care to bots, apps and online forms in a real crisis. According to the account, he was just one of many passengers stranded in Thailand with similar difficulties, most of whom did not write about their experiences.