Dubai: Passengers caught up in last week’s major disruption at Dubai International are bemoaning Emirates’ customer service after the airline lost their luggage.

Flight cancellations and delays affected thousands of passengers after an Emirates Boeing 777 caught fire at Dubai International on Wednesday. The incident forced the Middle East’s busiest airport to temporarily close and then operate on a restricted basis for more than 72 hours until Saturday afternoon.

Passengers who travelled with Emirates during the disruptions told Gulf News they were disappointed after losing their luggage.

“Everything is lost,” Thalia Kehoe Rowden told Gulf News by email.

Rowden, who flew Emirates with her husband and two young children from London Gatwick to Thailand via Dubai on a delayed August 4 flight, said the airline has lost four bags, two child’s car seats and a child’s pushchair.

The airline hasn’t contacted her and the reference numbers and contact numbers given to her for the lost luggage don’t work, she said.

“I have tried the webchat helpline on Emirates.com and can’t get a response either. I left messages on Facebook and Twitter and have received no response,” she said.

Another passenger who flew to Prague from Dubai on Friday said that “a bunch” of passengers had their bags lost.

Humaid Mansour told Gulf News by phone he spoke to an Emirates staff who said "you know you’re not the only one and there are 30,000 bags that are lost in transit". The airline is giving him $100 (Dh367) compensation a day for up to three days, he said.

Emirates apologised for the “inconvenience caused”, and said it was unable to confirm how many bags are missing. An Emirates call centre representative told Gulf News “thousands” of bags were missing.

“Our teams are now working hard to clear a backlog of misconnected bags which remain in Emirates’ hub,” the airline told Gulf News in a statement.

Emirates said its “dedicated teams have already been working at capacity” due to the peak summer period, “creating challenges in clearing the accumulated backlog”.

“Today, however, we are pleased to report continued improvement and have a solid plan in place to continue transporting bags and reuniting them with our customers.”

Sara Khalaf, who flew from Kuwait to Jordan via Dubai, told Gulf News the airline had found one of her three missing bags and was to deliver it later yesterday.

‘Don’t pick up the phone’

“I’m only here for one week and it’s been two days without any new clothes, without anything to change into … This experience has been horrible,” she said.

Another passenger who flew from Barcelona to Kuala Lumpur via Dubai on a delayed August 5 flight said all five bags that he and his friends checked in had been lost.

“In Dubai they ensured the bags were in our flight. After that, nothing has been said by Emirates,” Oriol Abad told Gulf News.

“We are quite disappointed … they don’t even pick up the phone,” he said.