Qantas : Been on Hold for 1 hour, 15 minutes and still holding

[markis10]

Why are you surprised with the delays, I would not have even bothered given you were competing with 50+ planeloads of people who dont have a flight let alone a boarding pass that cannot be printed!

 

[LiamR]

Unfortunatly there are people that have been sitting in airports for over 12 hours, they can't do anything but sit and wait. I'd hope that taking care of those people would come before somebody having a problem checking in online.

At least you can do other things while on hold, just think of everybody at the airport. From what I hear T2 SYD is an absoulte nightmare, getting to the point where its hard to move around. (Excpet in the lounge of course, where Misha is happily drinking his wine.)

Just head to the customer service desk tommorow, if you have no luggage to checkin, just go directly to the gate and ask somebody there. The call centre can't do anything to help.

 

[djfuzz]

Wow, you called on your mobile? I hope you have an unlimited cap plan.

If it were any other day, I agree this would be bad. But it's pretty clear what's causing the issues today; at least you weren't trying to get through to Jetstar (I had to try this for an unrelated reason during the Queensland floods, and it was understandably quite difficult - no premium line there either).

I agree that QF needs to work on managing its capacity when things go awry, and especially so over heavy travel periods like long weekends; but I think that has to start at the airport where things are of more immediate concern and can very easily get out of control (especially when humans are being phased out), with phone service a few rungs down on that.

It's unfortunate that this was all caused by a small mistake, but your issue will be fixed at the airport; so just chalk it up to experience and make sure you don't click on the dangerous goods button next time.

 

[LiamR]

I agree that QF needs to work on managing its capacity when things go awry, and especially so over heavy travel periods like long weekends; but I think that has to start at the airport where things are of more immediate concern and can very easily get out of control (especially when humans are being phased out), with phone service a few rungs down on that.

I was thinking about this yesterday.

MEL is a NCGI terminal, there is no general queue for pax. Only Business class. Therefore when something goes completely wrong, they don't have a queue system to be able to use, meaning it becomes a complete zoo at the terminal. There isn't rows and rows of computers for the staff to use to be able to process all the pax.

What would they do? Surley you can't send them to kiosks to select new flights?

 

[straitman]

Re: Qantas : On Hold for 2 and half hours: Perseverance or Stupidity ?

When I posted earlier about making a mistake wrt an online booking and clicking on yes to "dangerous goods" I was on hold for 1h15 mins to Qantas trying to rectify it - I figured I may as well carry on holding on , right ?
I gave up after 2 and half hours !
Is this my bad , or thiers ?
Should they have a call back system in place , and should I have hung up much much earlier ?

Cliff,

As others have said, you have wasted 2.5 hrs of your time as this cannot be fixed over the phone.

Re your poll I have not voted as I would say 0 - 15 min normally but longer under current circumstances.

 

[Taezar]

I was thinking about this yesterday.

MEL is a NCGI terminal, there is no general queue for pax. Only Business class. Therefore when something goes completely wrong, they don't have a queue system to be able to use, meaning it becomes a complete zoo at the terminal. There isn't rows and rows of computers for the staff to use to be able to process all the pax.

What would they do? Surley you can't send them to kiosks to select new flights?

You walk up to one of the friendly CS ppl on the ground, explain what you did, blush a bit and you get ushered through and it is all sorted in under a few minutes.

 

[LiamR]

You walk up to one of the friendly CS ppl on the ground, explain what you did, blush a bit and you get ushered through and it is all sorted in under a few minutes.

I'm a little confused.... How can you do this with 1500 other people stuck in the same situation as you and no queue?

 

[samh004]

I'm a little confused.... How can you do this with 1500 other people stuck in the same situation as you and no queue?

In the OP's case there wouldn't be 1500 other people as it's an international flight to South Africa. As far as I could tell, most international flights, even to South Africa, were still flying, just on altered routes.

In the current 'ash' situation, it wouldn't matter as all flights are cancelled/delayed/grounded so being checked that you don't have dangerous items on you is the last thing to think about, as each passenger would undoubtedly be re-booked.

As for service desks, just because it's NGCI-equipped doesn't mean there aren't counters available to non-status pax, there are, it's just a long line. Though as noted by Taezar, fronting up to ground staff by a kiosk would probably be the simplest fix.

Oh and of course, what do statistics say about 1500 people all accidentally clicking "Yes" to a dangerous goods question at OLCI at the airport at the same time?

 

[LiamR]

As for service desks, just because it's NGCI-equipped doesn't mean there aren't counters available to non-status pax, there are, it's just a long line. Though as noted by Taezar, fronting up to ground staff by a kiosk would probably be the simplest fix.

Sorry, I must have gotten too off-topic for anybody to follow.

I'm not talking about dangers goods decleration, thats easy to fix. I'm talking about how would you rebook 1500 pax when we have a ash cloud incident at a NCGI airport? With most of the old desks removed it is nowhere near as efficent as it use to be.

[/Off Toipc]

 

[Mal]

You can't use an example gleamed during a massive airline disruption and claim anything other than "They're very busy today.". 2/3rds of their call centre are probably calling affected pax, the other 1/3 are dealing with the same affected pax trying to call QF. You are very low in their priority schedule.

(As commented earlier, I hope calling 13x numbers from your mobile phone is in your cap... otherwise you do have a big bill coming up )

 

[Misha]

At least you can do other things while on hold, just think of everybody at the airport. From what I hear T2 SYD is an absoulte nightmare, getting to the point where its hard to move around. (Excpet in the lounge of course, where Misha is happily drinking his wine.)

Happily happily he was, as happily as one could, not knowing if he was leaving for MEL or moving into the Lounge permanently. But loved the lovely wine

Now.... back on topic

 

[kpc]

If you had bothered to read my post(#6) and others, you should have hung anyway as even if you had got through, QF could do nothing over the phone

 

[djfuzz]

Sorry, I must have gotten too off-topic for anybody to follow.

I'm not talking about dangers goods decleration, thats easy to fix. I'm talking about how would you rebook 1500 pax when we have a ash cloud incident at a NCGI airport? With most of the old desks removed it is nowhere near as efficent as it use to be.

[/Off Toipc]

In the OP's case there wouldn't be 1500 other people as it's an international flight to South Africa. As far as I could tell, most international flights, even to South Africa, were still flying, just on altered routes.

...

As for service desks, just because it's NGCI-equipped doesn't mean there aren't counters available to non-status pax, there are, it's just a long line. Though as noted by Taezar, fronting up to ground staff by a kiosk would probably be the simplest fix.

Oh and of course, what do statistics say about 1500 people all accidentally clicking "Yes" to a dangerous goods question at OLCI at the airport at the same time?

As Liam's clarified, we were talking about a different situation to the OP's, so the latter remark is not relevant nor particularly useful.

In any case, as for the long line, it doesn't exist; instead you're left with what can only be described as a 'moshpit' of puzzled, angry pax with uncertain as to whether they're in a line or simply wasting their time. Having been in one of these pits twice, I would describe it as somewhat akin to a zoo, with no sense of order, people cutting everywhere, pax with legitimately special needs (kids, disabilities, seniors, imminent departures) being trampled over by people who simply don't give a [expletive], and not a single member of staff about to manage it (and the few at the two remaining desks or from unrelated departments completely swamped trying to manage issues that they're simply unequipped to deal with).

I wasn't at an airport today or this weekend, though I did hear from friends returning from SYD that T3 went relatively unscathed; then again, I do wonder how MEL departures would have looked like had this occurred on Saturday morning.

 

[medhead]

I can't believe you stayed on the phone so long. What is so urgent about printing the BP that it can't wait until your wife is at the airport? (ignoring that they can't do anything on the phone anyway)

 

[munitalP]

Due to the personal nature of the phone call, one would expect the overwhelming response would be "as long as it takes"

However it seems this open ended [question] poll has attracted a number of AFF members who after 15 minutes of being on hold to cancel a flight, book a flight or resolve an issue would just hang up. Yeah right.

munitalP

 

[drron]

I was thinking about this yesterday.

MEL is a NCGI terminal, there is no general queue for pax. Only Business class. Therefore when something goes completely wrong, they don't have a queue system to be able to use, meaning it becomes a complete zoo at the terminal. There isn't rows and rows of computers for the staff to use to be able to process all the pax.

What would they do? Surley you can't send them to kiosks to select new flights?

But you cant NGCI at the international terminal can you?As the OP's wife is going to South Africa there will be real people to check in with.
And sorry as has been said before yesterday can not be used as typical of QF's response.And this from a fellow who shifted from QF back in 2003.

 

[markis10]

MEL is a NCGI terminal, there is no general queue for pax. Only Business class.

That is not correct, there is always a service desk queue regardless of class of travel for the domestic terminal, and it was almost to the pavement this morning at 7AM with people !

 

[medhead]

Due to the personal nature of the phone call, one would expect the overwhelming response would be "as long as it takes" However it seems this open ended [question] poll has attracted a number of AFF members who after 15 minutes of being on hold to cancel a flight, book a flight or resolve an issue would just hang up. Yeah right.munitalP

I couldn't vote because there was no "depends on the urgency of what I'm calling about". That then covers a range of situations from "won't call at all" to "ash cloud - as long as it takes"

 

[Blackadder]

Due to the personal nature of the phone call, one would expect the overwhelming response would be "as long as it takes"

However it seems this open ended [question] poll has attracted a number of AFF members who after 15 minutes of being on hold to cancel a flight, book a flight or resolve an issue would just hang up. Yeah right.

munitalP

Assuming it relates to the OP, which wouldn't be a important issue to me given the circumstances 15 mins would be my limit then try and call at as less busier time.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

I do think that the airlines should be able to establish different options on their automated response units to at least provide callers not ringing about the ash cloud disruption the option to go to a different queue. There might still be longer delays than normal but at least it keeps some type of BAU service up and running. In saying that, I would imagine a large number of people impacted by the ash might then start trying to contact the airline through this option thus negating any benefit so maybe it wouldn't work after all.