1 reviews | Active since May 2020
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I booked for my wife and I, on the 13 April, to return to Rome via Addis Ababa on Friday May 1st 2020. My wife had been diagnosed with cancer in early January while we were holidaying and then underwent major surgery in February and subsequent treatments, in Cape Town. We had to get back to Italy because we had no more travel insurance to cover any more treatments so I booked with Ethiopian Airlines who were advertising flights. Just 5 days later, on the 18th, they decided they were no longer flying to Rome and cancelled our Addis Ababa Rome leg leaving the Cape Town Addis Ababa leg still current but we would have essentially been stuck there without accommodation or funds. We were eventually repatriated at great expense via a charter through the Canadian High Commission which was funded through dear friends of ours because we had spent our last funds to buy the Ethiopian tickets. As with all of the complaints here, despite calling their call centre in South Africa who pointed us to their website, they will not refund our tickets despite the fact that my wife may no longer be able to travel, so vouchers at this point are not worth the electronic paper they're written on. I am seething. I got to thinking how many planeloads of tickets they sold to people like us knowing full well they never intended to fly at all. I can't believe that in the space of 5 days, in mid April, with the Italian coronavirus situation on the front pages of every news service, Ethiopian Airlines didn't know they wouldn't be flying to Rome the day I booked, the 13th April. It's a **** to sell tickets knowing they won't need to refund them and then they're at liberty to charge whatever they want on the rebook!! So essentially they're investing our money to keep them afloat during tough times and then skinning us a second time in due course. Who do we complain to!!!!!!!????????? I challenge Ethiopian Airlines to come forward and sort out this mess if they are genuinely supposed to be putting their customers first.
