Etihad refusing to board at AUH despite being medically fit to fly, airport police called and now being detained (Updated 2022-06-03 with resolution)

This is happening to a very good friend of mine. He, his wife, and his 2-year-old son are stuck at the Abu Dhabi airport. Here is a succinct description.

The family flew out of Islamabad on Etihad Airways, flying back home to USA, with a layover in Abu Dhabi. On the flight from Islamabad to Abu Dhabi (AUH) the wife became very sick. Upon landing at AUH, she was taken to a clinic at the airport and examined. The clinic okayed her to take her flight to USA while recommending some medications. Despite this, Etihad refused to let her board, declaring her unfit and sick.

An Etihad employee told them that they have their own medical team which will not allow her to fly. Etihad is not providing any medical paperwork, proof, even a copy of her vitals, which show how sick she is. Their checked luggage was also removed from the plane. Things escalated quickly and the airport police was called.

Now (Tuesday May 24, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC) it has been more than seven hours and they have no idea when can they get to a hotel to rest or board an outbound flight. They are in the airport police holding area with little knowledge of local rules and regulations.

What recourse do they have? What can they do to help themselves and what can I do, sitting in the US, to help them?

I am in touch with them and can provide any other details as needed. At least the 2-year-old son is a US citizen, possibly all three of them are US citizens. Otherwise they are Pakistani citizens.

Updated 2022-06-03 with the details of what happened and its resolution.

Everyone has made it back home safely. They have had a chance to rest, recover, and talk to me about what happened.

The mother became sick (food poisoning) on the first leg of the flight from Islamabad. She was sick enough that flight attendants had to attend to her and a doctor, who was a passenger, had to help her. So Etihad knew how sick she was. They landed at AUH, went to the airport clinic (nothing to do with Etihad), and were cleared to fly. The family's first mistake was not to insist on getting some written evidence that she was fit to fly. Yes, it may not have helped because Etihad reserves the right to deny boarding, but still.

The mother felt better and the family tried to check-in for the next flight. She did admit to me that she alluded to her earlier sickness and was hoping (half joking half seriously) that they might upgrade her seat as a courtesy or something. Of course it backfired. The lady at the Etihad counter became suspicious and irate.

At this point, there was probably a whole bunch of miscommunication involved with the wrong tone of voice, body language, and poor word choice. No one present had English as their first language but they could communicate only in English. The family was tired, had a case of "get-there-itis", and were dreading 12+ hours nonstop flight to USA with a toddler. The lady was also very irate and maybe just had a bad week. As the story progressed, there were overtones of racism. Arabs treating Subcontinental Asians as second class citizens is well-known. Furthermore, the mother, being an American citizen, demanded more respect and refused to be treated unfairly, which probably pissed off the Etihad staff even more. Moreover, an element of face-saving was present on both sides, huge in all Asian cultures as far as I know. Once the gauntlet was thrown, neither side was going to back down.

The lady first took their passports and disappeared. Then when she came back she denied them boarding outright and told them that she had taken their luggage off the plane. This is where the family got pissed off and voices were raised. The father took out his phone and started recording a video. This is where she called the police. They showed up and told him that it is illegal here to record anything like this (recording the public, especially women without their permission). The father told the police that he was only pretending and didn't actually record anything, and yes I don't see anything posted anything on his social media or anything. The police confiscated his phone and started going through the various apps, never found anything. There was also some sexism at play here because the police refused to talk to the mother and only talked to the father. The father did apologize here repeatedly, admitting his mistake, saying that they just wanted to go home and nothing else.

The police took them away, held them in a detention center. The father is a Pakistani citizen. The mother and the toddler are American citizens. The mother contacted her family and posted privately on FB asking for help. This is how I found out. Her family contacted both the American and the Pakistani consulates. Being late at night, they both said that their representatives will show up next morning at 8am.

Not sure if the police saw their social media activity or anything but they confiscated her phone a short while later so there was no way for anyone to get in touch with them now. The mother/toddler were separated from the father; just sit quietly and no talking with anyone but they were in the same room. They couldn't go anywhere, only one trip to the bathroom and even that only with an escort; no food nor water, and not even a blanket for the toddler. They spent the entire night in the holding area. They were questioned separately at least once before the lawyers arrived. They were given papers, written entirely in Arabic, to sign, which they both refused. There was at least one iteration of good-cop bad-cop.

The lawyers showed up on time. They Americans did say that they always treat the entire family as a unit as long as there is at least one US citizen present. But ironically perhaps, it seems that in the current political/diplomatic climate, UAE is more friendly with Pakistan than it is with the USA. The family was released. No one knows if any charges were actually filed or what. The police said something about harassing/assaulting the Etihad employee but of course there was no evidence and they couldn't produce any when demanded. Also the family is not sure if there is a ban on them flying Etihad again or if there is a ban on them visiting/transiting UAE or Abu Dhabi, though we are 99% sure there is. They won't be flying Etihad or visiting Abu Dhabi anytime soon anyway.

After they were released, Etihad actually offered to fly them to the USA. After some debate and hesitation, they accepted. Etihad also offered them a hotel stay, which they also accepted. They stayed, left the next day, and made it all the way home. They are pretty shaken up, tired, angry, and want justice and revenge. But there is no actual proof that any of this actually happened except for some documentation somewhere within the State Department. To all appearances, Etihad fulfilled their contract, got them to their destination, with a free hotel stay in "good faith". So no reason to "demand" anything from anyone. No public shaming or social media shaming scheme will really work because Etihad "didn't do anything wrong". I told them I feel their pain and I would be just as angry in their place but there is nothing they can really do. They will easily be made out to be the bad guys. The employee and the police didn't even tell them the employee's name despite asking them repeatedly. So, they have nothing.

In the background, Imran Khan's recent removal as the Prime Minister of Pakistan (in April 2022) has caused a massive upheaval in Pakistan as well as in many overseas Pakistani communities. UAE has a very large Pakistani community and it has seen many protests. In fact, the very same day when the family was detained, the local Pakistani embassy released a statement saying that any kind of such protests, including social media activity, is illegal in UAE and all Pakistanis should refrain from such activity. Posting on social media and/or shaming is what the airline and the police were most "afraid of" and probably added fuel to the fire.

So make what you will but now it is just "their word" against "their word". One moral of the story here is that living in the United States, we tend to take the freedoms and liberties guaranteed here for granted. It is very easy, even for immigrants, to quickly forget, or perhaps never to be aware of them in first place, that bias based on your race, your gender, your name, your family/clan, your religion, is alive and well in the entire world, including the USA. Your passport may offer you some protection, but not always. Even if it eventually saves, you can still suffer a lot of pain before you get out. Just because the US guarantees you the right to free speech and protest, in person or on social media, it doesn't mean that the rest of the world has to do the same for you. It is not a guaranteed universal right to be treated fairly, objectively, or even with respect, decency, and common courtesy just because you are a human being. There are plenty of present day examples where even Americans at home are not immune from from such behavior by other Americans.

Travelers Beware!