A friend missed 8:30pm BKK-DXB due to rain and heavy traffic, shows up at ticket counter 8:45pm. Next flights are leaving at 1am, 2am and 3am with seats available , but airport stuff can not reschedule, because they do not have ticketing in BKK and requests pax do it online. Of course nothing is possible online after flight departure, so pax should call, but do not have SIM card that works in Thailand any more and asked me to make a call on their behalf.

My 1st call to Thailand res goes for about 30 minutes when agents tries to figure out how to “unlock” the ticket , because “system does not allow” him to make changes. Then call is disconnected.

My 2nd call also to Thai number gets different agent who makes change to 1am flight, but unable to provide price difference due to “system error”. After 45 minutes on hold they promise to call me back “shortly” after “special desk” can fix it.

Waited 1.5 hours, no callback, already 2.5 hours passed since passenger showed up at the airport.

My 3rd call to USA reservations was more successful. Agent can actually price ticket, but it’s too late for 1am / 2am flight and 3am have only very expensive fares, over 1400$ price difference in addition to $200 change fee. Also had to argue that passenger should not be charged $300 no show, because within 1 hour of scheduled departure should be treated as change fee, agent agrees, but price difference too high anyway.

Ended up buying new ticket on another airline, but the whole experience was disgrace.

I know that many airlines are cutting down the costs by removing airport ticketing, especially budget airlines, but for a premium airline with over 2000 daily pax in BKK not to have basic ticketing capability to handle urgent cases and irrops is very strange. And after that having to deal to call center for 3 hours trying to make a basic change is unacceptable.