An American Airlines passenger drove to Denver airport to rebook his seats after the airline's customer-service center left him on hold for nearly 4 hours

Business Insider ^ | June 30, 2022 | Stephen Jones

[grundle]

An American Airlines passenger who spent nearly four hours on hold with the airline's customer-service center grew so frustrated he drove 45 minutes to the airport to rebook his seats at the ticket counter.

Brain Driver, a radio station manager, needed to rebook his flight home after a business trip to Denver ended early, The Wall Street Journal reported. He said he initially tried to switch his flight using the airline's mobile service and website but was unable to do so.

He then called the airline's customer service center and was given a callback time of eight hours, according to The Journal. Eventually, he spoke to an agent via the airline's chat platform — but experienced further difficulty choosing his seats, according to the publication.

Driver tried calling the airline again the next day but was told to try later because the lines were busy, The Journal said. When he tried again the following morning he spent three hours and 45 minutes on hold, eventually growing so frustrated that he drove 45 minutes to rebook his seats at the ticket counter at Denver International Airport.

"This has been by far the worst airline call center experience I've ever had," Driver told The Journal.

A spokesperson for American Airlines told Insider that weather and air-traffic-control issues were behind long mid-June hold times, the highest the airline had seen over the past several weeks.

"These challenges, combined with an anomaly in this customer's booking, resulted in an experience that did not meet what we aim to deliver for our customers," the airline said.

[USAF1985]

I avoid American at all costs. One time they cancelled my flight back to Orlando, then eventually booked me on a flight to Tampa (8 hours later) and told me I was on my own after that leg…I had to book a one way rental car to Orlando and pick my car up for the trip home. When I asked why they didn’t book me to my originating destination…the agent said “we got you to central Florida”. Didn’t matter I live on the other coast apparently.

[dainbramaged]

My time limit for being put “on hold” is around 8 minutes, give or take.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

To AA: Die, corporate scum!!!

[ifinnegan]

Call the wambulance.

[BlackbirdSST]

Correct. Verizon is the best at this kind of “customer service”. Put ‘em on hold until they give up.

I'm at the end of a 12 week run with them. Getting simple dial tone with those people turned into a cluster foxtrot. Then came the billing nightmare. I'm not yet comfortable that the billing issues are resolved permanently.

[brianl703]

Recently, I waited on hold for tech support for 90 minutes. Nobody ever answered and I hung up.

This is for enterprise software used by large companies and the FedGov. It costs about $8k.