Review: A Nightmare On Wataniya Airways

Ironically, we chose Wataniya because of the flight timings. What a joke! The price was also pretty irresistible but now you couldn't pay me to fly with them again. And please don't say the W word to my husband,

First rescheduling details sent by email. Okay no problem it happens and it wasn't too inconvenient. Although note there is no apology. 

Another email received, another change. Again not too bad and we were at home when we got it. Also no apology, obviously our inconvenience is of little importance to them.

Telephone messages of more rescheduling - 

Wataniya Airways Customer, Your flight Q9115 on Sat, 30 Dec 2017 18:50 {KWI/BAH} has changed.New departure is on Sat, 30 Dec 2017 19:20 hrs.

Wataniya Airways Customer, Your flight Q9116 on Tue, 02 Jan 2018 20:40 {BAH/KWI} has changed.New departure is on Tue, 02 Jan 2018 23:45 hrs.

Confused? Yep, we too. And extremely annoyed especially when our departure from Bahrain was then delayed a further two hours at airport. No apologies, coffee or anyone around to complain to. My husband wanted to offload our luggage, go back to hotel and fly another airline but we couldn't find any Wataniya staff. 

They lied, we took off at 01:43 LT. 

The re-scheduling of our flights had nothing to do with the foggy weather as on the 30 Dec and 2 Jan there was no fog at the time we were flying. But we did hear that the flights may have been rescheduled to accommodate the Bahraini football supporters. Okay, but why the numerous reschedules? Why no apologies? Really disgraceful customer service and bizarre behaviour for a new airline. Actually a born-again airline that I can't imagine will last more than six months at this rate.

If there had been a hotel in the airport I'm pretty sure we would have gone to bed and let them offload our luggage for collection in the morning. 

The purser of the flight did offer an apology on landing in Kuwait after our complaints to her. I did give her a complaint letter but have heard absolutely nothing from them.

I worked for 18 years at Kuwait Airways and truly never came across anything as ludicrous as this. To make things even worse immigration was really busy on arrival and our luggage took forever to come at Kuwait Airport, we didn't get home until 4.30am and for a silly 50 minute flight that is beyond ridiculous.

So we did officially complain to them. No answer, nada, diddly-squat. A no-frills airline, poorly managed, with no concern for passengers or punctuality. A disastrous experience. My husband has made it very clear that he doesn't want to hear their name ever again.

Wataniya get your act together.

It's 1/10 for me. And I'm not even sure what the 1 is for.