In Brief: American Apologizes After Leaving Woman on Hold for 6 Hours
Jesse Tabit March 05, 2015
American Airlines has issued an apology after leaving a woman on hold for six hours Sunday when she called to rebook a flight. Renee Allen reportedly received a text from the airline informing her that her flight, which was scheduled to depart on Sunday from Garden City, Kan. to Tampa International Airport (TPA) via Dallas, was canceled due to weather.
Allen claims she dialed the customer service number she was given and, after calling multiple times and being disconnected due to high call volumes, finally got through only to sit on hold for six hours.
“I thought maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour and two hours into it, I realized this is crazy but I’m not going to give up,” said Allen. “This really was horrible customer service. I just could not believe that I could not get through.”
In the airline’s apology, American said it was forced to cancel more than 2,000 over the weekend due to winter weather in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
For additional information on this story, visit Tampa’s FOX 13.
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Over the past few weeks I have been using up PesoPoints on Delta Three things have impressed me with Delta 1] Telephone Call Back from Reservations when its your turn 2]Bag Tracking for Luggage in Baggage Claim area 3]Faulty IFE MCO-LAX but Senior FA with Nokia Tablet had $150 Voucher in my mailbox before I Landed However all The Major Airlines could all use a Lesson from Alaska : For assistance from countries not listed: 001-206-244-0751 (Note: This is not a toll-free number}
If you think that's bad try US Airways soon to be American (I shudder to think what will happen when the new CEO is in full throttle at AA? US Airways lost my baggage from phoenix to LAS with 3 hours between connecting flights call US Airways and get a recording sorry due to weather no one here today to take your call due to heavy call volume Call back some other day! huh? what? At least AA will call you back if you leave them a call back number
When DFW froze up last Thanksgiving I was on hold for about 4 or 5 hours (no AA status). Not unexpected--I just had the phone on speaker and went to sleep--woke up when they answered. Bigger problem was the earliest they could reschedule me was 4 days later. I'm fine with AA customer service, just put in some more capacity/empty seats in case there are problems.
To be fair to AA, 2,000 flights cancelled x 150 pax per flight is about 300,000 people to reschedule. A few will slip through the cracks in a situation like that.
And to add - at least this woman got notification of her cancelled flight from TPA to DFW. My DCA-DFW continuing on QF to SYD was cancelled, and as EXP I never even got an email or an automated phone call on the cancellation. Had I not checked that day before on status - I may not have been able to be accommodated on another flight to get to DFW. As it turns out - lots of people had there flights cancelled and were never re-accommodated. The A380 left DFW with only about 150 people on it (many missing the flight). If it took me 3 hours on hold on EXP line - I am not sure how others could even get through. Maybe I need an apology. If I had not waited with 3 hours - I likely would have missed the SYD flight as well.