Is it just me or LH call center line is constantly malfunctioning?
 

Been trying to reach LH in the past 20 or so minutes with no success, after a very old-fashioned ring tone, the line either goes straight to dead silence, or there's some brief scratching noice as if someone is trying to pick up the phone, however it's dead silence after that as well.

Been trying the DE line, Dutch line, DE frequent traveller line (including the call back option), the US line, all same problem. And I remember having the same issue back in March.

Is LH's hotline this overwhelmed that they couldn't fix it after all these months?

HON line is working as of now 👍

Indeed, have had same issue several times even on HON line. Was thinking that this is maybe related to being in a different time zone and staff having fallen asleep? Don't know.

I also encounter this exact issue every now and then. I assume it is when the call routing system is overwhelmed. It annoys me.

This happens to about 60-70% of the calls I made to LH in the past few months (even though I don't call LH often, only 3 bookings which I had to get in touch in the past year), but still this seems to be a prevalent and persistent issue. Not sure if LH is aware of it?

This and last week they cleaned up the schedule again. Whenever they do that, a wave of calls follows and the lines are overloaded. They are aware of it.

In my experience it goes like this:
1) call rings through, then silence
2) hang up, call back again immediately, rings through, someone picks up

Never goes through the first time, always goes through immediately after calling back. Weird, but not too big of a hassle.

In my case the senator line goes thru the usual 'press 1 for ...' stuff, then you get a US style ring tone, then some noise, then silence and 10 seconds later the agent picks up. Last friday the agent hung up on me (or got disconnected) just after telling me 'LH is not responsible for a reissue but my TA is'. The line went silent for a while and then the survey came on.

I have this same issue again today. Tried the general LH line in Germany, Switzerland and the US.... same result.

Intriguingly, the (US) line did connect immediately when I opted out of having my call recorded... hard to say if it was a coincidence. Annoying in any case.

I don't know why but when I called the Turkish speaking hotline a few times last week, I did never had that issue.

1- I get connected immediately.
2- I started listening to the famous Lufthansa melody which is also featured in the intro of the safety video.

That's exactly true! And I had a nasty theory, and I tested it, and shockingly enough I was right with my worst assumptions.....

The agents do this to take a break!!! They hit mute until you hang up. They only do this when the system shows an opt out from recordings, of course. Otherwise they might get indeed fired. But without recording, they cannot get caught.

So I A/B tested. About 50% of my (approximately 4) test calls with recording opt out where answered immediately, 50% I got immediate answers with dead silence. On the last one, I said that I can hear you breathing, and I would report it if I don't get an answer. Badabum, magic, a female agent apologises that she had a microphone problem and professionally helps me out. How embarrassing is that!

Confirmed - LX/LH agents answers and sleeps
 

Our worst suspicions above seem confirmed by this article and video....

https://www.20min.ch/story/schlafender-swiss-mitarbeiter-hotline-anrufer-hoert-nur-lautes-schnaufen-806823947608

A major part of the problem seems to be agents just hanging up if you want anything more complex than FRA-MUC return. This is more common with the MNL call centre but does also happen sometimes if you get CPT. I guess it depends where you’re calling from but in my case “hotline” numbers just go through to the same places.

I had these issues in the past couple of weeks as well. Called at least 10 times. One question was tricky, and suddenly the agent "did not hear me anymore". the other 6-7 times I got connected, and it was just silent, then I heard phone beeps again, silent... hung up.

The most weird experience: I got connected. The aAgent could not hear me, but I could hear him. I sort of think I was joined to another call, as the Agent was talking about his favorite music and his old records and hobbies, I heard music in between as well when he played his favorite songs, and he was having a fun time with another person at the other end.

I listened for about 5 minutes, thought it was somewhat amusing (albeit annoying)... but no wonder waiting times are that long if they call privately....

Today I called in to check on a complicated ticketing situation and for the first time the SEN line system told me that my estimated wait time was 30 seconds. :) It took about 2-3 minutes for the agent to pick up and the line was very noisy at time. She had to put me on hold once to check something with her helpdesk and I was scared that I would disconnect. Luckily none of that happened.