As reported by Fox 13, an American Airlines passenger who was needing to re-book her cancelled flight on Sunday was left on hold for 6 hours! American passenger Allen was booked on a flight from Garden City, Kansas to Tampa on Sunday when she received a text from American Airlines that her flight was cancelled.
American Airlines Leaves Passenger On Hold For 6 Hours
“They gave me a phone number to call, I tried to call several times, only to be told that the call volume was too much, and to call back another time. And then it would hang up on me,” she said. “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,” she said.”
After six hours, Allen was unbelievably still on hold.
“This really was horrible customer service. I just could not believe that I could not get through,” she said.”
American Airlines released the following statement regarding the delays:
“We apologize for the frustrating experience. It was a very challenging weekend due to extreme winter weather impacting the Dallas/Fort Worth area. American had more than 2,000 weather-related cancellations systemwide on Saturday and Sunday. We also had extended wait times in our reservations system and social media channels. We worked to re-accommodate customers as quickly as possible based on their individual travel plans.”
Bottom Line
This is pretty bad; talk about frustrating! I can’t even imagine sitting on hold for so long. What do you think about this story? I think I would have gone down to the airport to book my flight rather then sit on hold for 6 hours. How about you?
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If only this passenger had access to AA’s Advantage Elite (Platinum or Gold) status direct phone line? Wonder if the hold time would have been reduced?
I think after 2 hours you could pretty much say they aren’t picking up. I had a bad experience last Sunday myself. They canceled my ORD-MSY flight and left a message on my voice mail. When I called to reschedule, the automated answering machine said that due to high call volume, they had longer than usual wait times, after which they just hung up on me. At the time I was upset, but now I see they did me a favor. Better that then hanging on the phone for 6 hours! Too bad they don’t have one of those call-back functions.
This doesn’t surprise me. And I doubt that status would help except for EXPs. I waited on hold with the AA Gold help line for a little better than two hours Saturday night. Finally I gave up and went to bed. The next day I called back and got through in less than five minutes.
I was left on hold for 5 hrs also. Was leaving LAS 2 days ago and was cancelling our return on Cathay to fly Singapore (We changed plans and brought our 7 year old with us to Hong Kong). I spent the week prior trying to get someone on the phone to cancel the tickets. I was NOT able to reach a person and waited 2 hrs in HKG to speak to a ticket agent who gave me the Hong Kong number which I called on the nice free phone Hyatt provided. If someone wants it here it is 30579191. Maybe us google voice? Took me 5 min to get through.
Sweet Antignos. Will look into that number. Never used it before. Has anyone else tried the Hong Kong number in the past?
Sunday night was brutal. I know someone who stayed 8 hours in the airport only for American to cancel the flight…
Just flew AA for the first time last week. Boy did they make United look like Singapore service with Japanese bullet train efficiency. Worst customer service interactions, one after the other that I’ve ever had, so clearly systemic, and utter incompetence and disorganization to a point they should have their license to do business revoked, not be approved for a merger. Incredible.
I am AA platinum and was on hold almost 5 hours Saturday. If this truly was a “very challenging weekend” I would understand except for the fact that an almost identical scenario occurred last winter (6 hours on hold that time).
I have a friend that I have been texting with today. They were supposed to fly back to Dallas tonight at 9PM. Their flight was cancelled earlier today. They have been on hold with American going on 8 hours now. Absolutely crazy and unacceptable.