Bad experience..wouldnt recoomend

I flew Etihad Airlines from Chicago to Chennai with stopover at Abu Dhabi in Jan 2012. Etihad airlines in very particular on the weight of the baggage both check in and carry on's. My carry on luggage was over by 1 pound and they said that I would not allow it. The guys checking the weight of the luggage are rude to everybody but on this day there was a lady traveling with 2 of her kids and he made her move things from the luggage. There was so much trade of words between them that I felt that I was in a third world country.

They take your credit card to pay for the extra weight on the luggage and we had to wait for 30 minutes to get the card back...way too slow and incompetent service. Before boarding the flight some of the fellow passengers were told that their carry-on luggage would have to be checked in and they will be charging for it.....the scene really turned ugly here with lot of bad mouth from the passengers to the crew.

The food on the flight was not all that great. I had traveled in other carriers and would say that Etihad is not up to the standards. Some of them didn't get what they ordered and the flight crew didn't have any extra ones.

The entertainment system on the flight was not bad with some good options on the movies. This was the only one that was better.

Based on my experience i wouldn't recommend Etihad Airways to my friends or colleagues unless they make some serious changes with how they handle the customers.