wigstheone
Oct 18, 01, 8:03 am
Airlines have been dangling aggressive leisure-fare sales in front of consumers, hoping to stimulate travel. But some hopeful passengers have been left dangling on overloaded telephone reservation lines.
The massive industry layoffs that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have left fewer airline reservation agents to answer phones. And those who do remain are sometimes busy calling already-booked passengers to inform them of widespread flight scheduling cuts that require altered itineraries. Airlines also say they are being bombarded with calls from frustrated or concerned passengers wanting to cancel or rebook flights, or get answers to questions over everything from carry-on baggage limits to security measures.
"That tends to busy up the phone lines," said Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Cindi Kurczewski.
Calls to airline reservation lines on Tuesday evening between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Central Daylight Time found wide disparities in waiting times. Calls to Northwest Airlines, UAL Corp.'s United and TWA Airlines all were answered with recorded messages turning callers away. TWA's recording even suggested contacting a local travel agent. Within minutes, separate calls made to each carrier resulted in almost immediate assistance at Northwest and United and a five-minute wait at TWA.
Hold times at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and America West Airlines, a unit of America West Holdings Corp., ran five minutes too, though American answered a separate call immediately. Hold time at Continental Airlines was a bit less, at three minutes, and the carrier answered one call immediately.
Even though a spokesman had earlier said US Airways Group Inc. was averaging only about one minute of wait, the carrier on Tuesday had a 14-minute wait to change a ticket, and an eight-minute wait for a new reservation.
Even at midnight, when many callers would normally expect to get immediate assistance, TWA has recently run "heavy call volume" recordings telling customers to call back later.
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1003356652277466480.htm
The massive industry layoffs that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have left fewer airline reservation agents to answer phones. And those who do remain are sometimes busy calling already-booked passengers to inform them of widespread flight scheduling cuts that require altered itineraries. Airlines also say they are being bombarded with calls from frustrated or concerned passengers wanting to cancel or rebook flights, or get answers to questions over everything from carry-on baggage limits to security measures.
"That tends to busy up the phone lines," said Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Cindi Kurczewski.
Calls to airline reservation lines on Tuesday evening between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Central Daylight Time found wide disparities in waiting times. Calls to Northwest Airlines, UAL Corp.'s United and TWA Airlines all were answered with recorded messages turning callers away. TWA's recording even suggested contacting a local travel agent. Within minutes, separate calls made to each carrier resulted in almost immediate assistance at Northwest and United and a five-minute wait at TWA.
Hold times at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and America West Airlines, a unit of America West Holdings Corp., ran five minutes too, though American answered a separate call immediately. Hold time at Continental Airlines was a bit less, at three minutes, and the carrier answered one call immediately.
Even though a spokesman had earlier said US Airways Group Inc. was averaging only about one minute of wait, the carrier on Tuesday had a 14-minute wait to change a ticket, and an eight-minute wait for a new reservation.
Even at midnight, when many callers would normally expect to get immediate assistance, TWA has recently run "heavy call volume" recordings telling customers to call back later.
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1003356652277466480.htm