TTundra
AH elite
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2015
- Messages
- 1,246
- Reaction score
- 2,794
- Location
- Northern, IL
- Media
- 66
- Articles
- 1
- Hunted
- RSA (Limpopo), USA , CAN
While I do apologize for making a complaint post so early in my AH career, I do not want what happened to me happen to another hunter. I know there may be an audience of readers whom have had OK deals with Emirates, but please read through these occurrences and make your decision more carefully as Emirates nearly ruined my plains game hunt. Without a doubt, its worth spending the $200-$300 more to fly with Delta.
That being said, I did have a fantastic time in country with Matwetwe safaris and cannot wait to go back! Hendrik put on an excellent camp and I will be writing up another review in another post to give him and his staff the credit due.
So, i arrive in OR Tambo by way of Dubai. Retrieve my rifles from SAPS and dont notice anything wrong, but I'm always a little tired after that long of a travel and wanted to get to the car for the drive ahead. Upon arrival to the camp we resighted our rifles to confirm zero. My fathers rifle, perfect, mine....shooting 12" high off the bat. Shoot again, 11" high. No problem, I'll just pull the turret cap of my Leupold VX-6 3-18x44 and adjust. cap....wont....budge. The elevation turret cap was smashed down so hard we needed pliers to finally remove it.
The rifles were packed in a Pelican 1750 rifle case with pick N Pluck foam. I've sold these cases for over 10 years with my profession (hunting industry) and traveled with them across the US, and UPS'd (shipped) them all over as well and have never had a problem. Judging from the issue, the case must have been dropped from a height of a few meters, probably from the baggage compartment doors, deliberately. This caused the 1 rifle to smash down and compress the pelican foam and hit my elevation turret. Its the only logical reason, the baggage, the rifles...were deliberately damaged. I spoke to a few PH's and they all say the same thing, that they see deliberate damage all the time. One even saw tire tracks over one rifle case with a broken stock.
Once the cap was removed I adjusted the scope and fired a few more times. It wasn't the groups I was used to, but I was tired from the travel and dismissed it as such. That was my mistake, I should have shot more. The trip went on and I shot a Kudu from 75 yards of so, warthog from 30 yards. No issues. It wasn't until I took a shot at a Gemsbok at 150 yards that I noticed the issue. 2 feet right and low. I thought it must have been me. Next day, shoot an impala at 100 yards, low and very left.
Go back to camp, resight in, sure enough, scope is throwing shots. 2 people confirmed. Not a Leupold problem, its an Emirates problem. Once again, the force it takes to smash down a turret cover to jump the threads and push out the gasket is immense. Any hunting scope would have had issues. Thank the lord I had a back up scope, a Tract Toric 2-10x42. remounted while sitting on my bed, then sighted in. next day, shoot a Blesbok at 200, damn near perfect shot.
So, at this point, emirates airlines damaged my rifle scope, $1600, caused a bad shot on a Gemsbok. And a shoulder shot on the impala, but recovered. Next to the Kudu, the Gemsbok was my other main goal in this hunt.
So, on the way home, we depart Tambo for Dubai. We leave 30 minutes late due to the plane deboarding a sick passenger. We land in Dubai 1 hour before our connection. Economy connections are not allowed to deboard until business gets off, no preference for connecting flights is given either. I'm not worried, still 45 minutes to get to the next gate. We get off, run thru security, and then are stopped by emirates personnel who are there to 'help' us. they take our tickets and say they are calling in the boarding passes for us. Great, right? No.....
We get to the gate 20 minutes before departure...that's when emirates personnel said the gates closed, and we cant board. Gate closes 20 minutes before departure. Well, we were held by an emirates employee who said they were calling us in and we should have been good. Not the case, and we cant argue. we had to go to the ticket desk to get rebooked on the flight for the next day. While there, we watched our plane from the window not leave the gate for another 30 minutes.
I firmly believe from speaking to various passengers who use emirates, they had no desire to get us on that flight. they knew we were slightly delayed so they gave our seats to stand by passengers to avoid having to dig thru the baggage hold for our luggage. At that point, we just wanted to get home, and now we were delayed 24 more hours. This now is costing the four of us each 1 day of work, my $1600 scope, and a missed gemsbok, and some aggravation on the trip.
lastly, I submit a report for damaged baggage 6 days after we get home, within the 7 day emirates policy and I'm sent an emails stating because I didn't send it 7 days from arrival in Africa my claim was void. Because I couldn't send an email from way out in marble hall, the bush, no cell service, no computer, etc. furthermore, they are denying the delay was unavoidable but admit we were stopped by emirates personnel.
ladies and gentleman, I'm sorry for the rant, and I know I should have been more diligent when I first thought something was wrong with the first scope, but I did get 2 animals on it. I have learned life lessons:
1-never fly emirates
2-bring a back up scope
but most of all, that I love Africa and cant wait to go back!!!! even with this horrible treatment from Emirates, I can't wait to return to the dark continent, hopefully 2018, and I will by flying Delta!
That being said, I did have a fantastic time in country with Matwetwe safaris and cannot wait to go back! Hendrik put on an excellent camp and I will be writing up another review in another post to give him and his staff the credit due.
So, i arrive in OR Tambo by way of Dubai. Retrieve my rifles from SAPS and dont notice anything wrong, but I'm always a little tired after that long of a travel and wanted to get to the car for the drive ahead. Upon arrival to the camp we resighted our rifles to confirm zero. My fathers rifle, perfect, mine....shooting 12" high off the bat. Shoot again, 11" high. No problem, I'll just pull the turret cap of my Leupold VX-6 3-18x44 and adjust. cap....wont....budge. The elevation turret cap was smashed down so hard we needed pliers to finally remove it.
The rifles were packed in a Pelican 1750 rifle case with pick N Pluck foam. I've sold these cases for over 10 years with my profession (hunting industry) and traveled with them across the US, and UPS'd (shipped) them all over as well and have never had a problem. Judging from the issue, the case must have been dropped from a height of a few meters, probably from the baggage compartment doors, deliberately. This caused the 1 rifle to smash down and compress the pelican foam and hit my elevation turret. Its the only logical reason, the baggage, the rifles...were deliberately damaged. I spoke to a few PH's and they all say the same thing, that they see deliberate damage all the time. One even saw tire tracks over one rifle case with a broken stock.
Once the cap was removed I adjusted the scope and fired a few more times. It wasn't the groups I was used to, but I was tired from the travel and dismissed it as such. That was my mistake, I should have shot more. The trip went on and I shot a Kudu from 75 yards of so, warthog from 30 yards. No issues. It wasn't until I took a shot at a Gemsbok at 150 yards that I noticed the issue. 2 feet right and low. I thought it must have been me. Next day, shoot an impala at 100 yards, low and very left.
Go back to camp, resight in, sure enough, scope is throwing shots. 2 people confirmed. Not a Leupold problem, its an Emirates problem. Once again, the force it takes to smash down a turret cover to jump the threads and push out the gasket is immense. Any hunting scope would have had issues. Thank the lord I had a back up scope, a Tract Toric 2-10x42. remounted while sitting on my bed, then sighted in. next day, shoot a Blesbok at 200, damn near perfect shot.
So, at this point, emirates airlines damaged my rifle scope, $1600, caused a bad shot on a Gemsbok. And a shoulder shot on the impala, but recovered. Next to the Kudu, the Gemsbok was my other main goal in this hunt.
So, on the way home, we depart Tambo for Dubai. We leave 30 minutes late due to the plane deboarding a sick passenger. We land in Dubai 1 hour before our connection. Economy connections are not allowed to deboard until business gets off, no preference for connecting flights is given either. I'm not worried, still 45 minutes to get to the next gate. We get off, run thru security, and then are stopped by emirates personnel who are there to 'help' us. they take our tickets and say they are calling in the boarding passes for us. Great, right? No.....
We get to the gate 20 minutes before departure...that's when emirates personnel said the gates closed, and we cant board. Gate closes 20 minutes before departure. Well, we were held by an emirates employee who said they were calling us in and we should have been good. Not the case, and we cant argue. we had to go to the ticket desk to get rebooked on the flight for the next day. While there, we watched our plane from the window not leave the gate for another 30 minutes.
I firmly believe from speaking to various passengers who use emirates, they had no desire to get us on that flight. they knew we were slightly delayed so they gave our seats to stand by passengers to avoid having to dig thru the baggage hold for our luggage. At that point, we just wanted to get home, and now we were delayed 24 more hours. This now is costing the four of us each 1 day of work, my $1600 scope, and a missed gemsbok, and some aggravation on the trip.
lastly, I submit a report for damaged baggage 6 days after we get home, within the 7 day emirates policy and I'm sent an emails stating because I didn't send it 7 days from arrival in Africa my claim was void. Because I couldn't send an email from way out in marble hall, the bush, no cell service, no computer, etc. furthermore, they are denying the delay was unavoidable but admit we were stopped by emirates personnel.
ladies and gentleman, I'm sorry for the rant, and I know I should have been more diligent when I first thought something was wrong with the first scope, but I did get 2 animals on it. I have learned life lessons:
1-never fly emirates
2-bring a back up scope
but most of all, that I love Africa and cant wait to go back!!!! even with this horrible treatment from Emirates, I can't wait to return to the dark continent, hopefully 2018, and I will by flying Delta!
