Here's the scenario: change a flexible one way ticket upgraded using miles to a day earlier, with availability in both classes, including making payment for the nominal change fee.

How hard can it be? According to EK. Easy but time consuming. Online doesn't allow it, even after years of upgrading/tweaking the website. On the phone, it took 32 minutes (excluding the 30 seconds needed to id myself). Thirty two minutes to do something that shouldn't take more than 5?!

The CS agent was apologetic by saying that the system was slow to respond (I heard that now too many times).

What's going on?!