Qantas leaves man trying to confirm his flight on hold for nearly 16 hours

[whatmeworry]

Welcome to Qantas, please hold - for 15 hours

 

[yohy?!]

Lol can't be serious he held for 16 hours, must be a routing problem with the IVR that sent him off to a phantom queue to hold forever.

 

[fbrimfield]

What idiot stays on a call to a call centre on a mobile for 15 hours? I call bull****, just some cough trying to get attention.

 

[Must...Fly!]

"Mr Kahn said the ordeal ''highlights the organisation being very disconnected from their customer care'' and, after flying at the weekend, he would not travel with Qantas again."

Rofl

 

[Awesom Andy]

"Mr Kahn said the ordeal ''highlights the organisation being very disconnected from their customer care'' and, after flying at the weekend, he would not travel with Qantas again."

At least he's got that one more or less correct...

 

[holdenvxman]

What idiot stays on a call to a call centre on a mobile for 15 hours? I call bull****, just some cough trying to get attention.

I agree full of ****

 

[YQY]

What idiot stays on a call to a call centre on a mobile for 15 hours? I call bull****, just some cough trying to get attention.

I can't believe he calls himself a businessman, what sort of idiot would stay on a mobile for 15 hours? Didn't he sleep that night? This story smells like a beat up

 

[MelUser]

Sorry I don't believe this.

It is actually better not to have such passengers on long haul flights as they can cause more trouble and be disproportionately more work than other passengers.

 

[Blackadder]

Add me to another to call BS on this, he said while he was allegedly waiting he was surfing the internet. In that case why didn't he surf over to www.qantas.com.au and confirm his travel details.

 

[Mal]

I can't believe he calls himself a businessman, what sort of idiot would stay on a mobile for 15 hours? Didn't he sleep that night? This story smells like a beat up

It probably happened. He's not the first person to do the same. However, most non-attention seeking people would hang up and redial.

I've certainly heard of people waiting 1-2 hours to talk to QF at times, (not recently though).

He was probably inspired by "the vodafail guy" who was on hold for 22 hours: Left hanging for 22 hours - Today Tonight
"
Orfanidis was left on hold by Vodafone, and waited for 1327 minutes all up.

“I just kept waiting and waiting and I thought ‘this is ridiculous, its been over an hour’. I just left my phone by my side on loudspeaker, and just waited to see how long it was going to take for them to answer the call.”"

 

[Simo]

As if.

QF either had a routing problem or he is full of cough.

Also he is from the USA so he would be on a pre paid service so it would have used all of or most of his credit.

And if he was on international roaming the cost of that call wold have been app $4500 based on $5 a minute call rate.

I want to see his phone records before I believe it.

 

[codash1099]

Load of bull and shame on the media for giving it airtime.

 

[TonyHancock]

Yes, I'm afraid the only reason you'd stay on hold that long is to do exactly what he did - make a splash in the media. Ridiculous.

 

[ric_melb]

Totally agree, this is bull. Who would ever wait 15 hours on a mobile phone. And the time was from 7pm to 11am. He doesn't sleep?
Any normal person would hang up and try again.
And agree shame on news media for printing this rubbish.

 

[smit0847]

Stupid story. Surprised The Age ran it - it's more like a Herald Sun story.

 

[RickyT84]

Agree with the other posters that something is not quite right here.

1) Who in their right mind would be happy to be put on hold for 15 hours? A normal person would have hung up and try again.
2) I don't think there is a need to confirm one's flight anymore (at least for QF and many other airlines)?

There must be more to the story....

 

[anat0l]

Most unusually, many of the comments on the OP's version of the article (keeping in mind that the article has ran on several news sites) are quite scathing of the man in concern and not of Qantas, as a very, very, very blue moon matter of change.

The man is a marketing manager. I guess he's used to dishing out scathing and sweeping commentary about every single hairline crack, and then priming and exaggerating them to equate to a disaster of organisation and management. (Of course, this is a very US thing to do, too: you don't get what you want = bad customer service = organisation not worthy of my money or your money, period).

Not only does a paper have some ridiculous sense to run this cr*pola, it's reached the "top news" on most of the other sites.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Other query, I'm sure if I made a 15 hour call my phone would blow up at the 3 hour mark...especially since it has to be on charge...

 

[docjames]

Looks like he's found his 15 minutes with 15 hours....

Time to move on...

 

[NM]

Perhaps someone should have told him that there is no need to confirm flights anymore.

He said he spent some of the time surfing the net while waiting. Why did he not just surf to QF's web site and "confirm" his travel details himself? He would see the same information as a call centre agent trying to confirm his flight. Less than five mins of checking the FAQ on the Qantas web site, using "confirm" as the search word would have found this:

Reconfirming Qantas flights
Question
Do I need to reconfirm my Qantas flights before I travel?
Answer
You do not have to reconfirm Qantas flights. However, we do suggest that you check the departure time of your flight on the day of travel. View the Flight Status page online for the latest updates or by call the Qantas flight information service on 13 12 23 within Australia. Elsewhere, contact your local Qantas Office.

You can also view your booking online at Manage Your Booking.

Perhaps he could have spent his time more productively.