Qantas is slammed for leaving a furious customer on hold for 8 hours

A fuming Qantas customer has revealed how she spent an absurd eight hours on hold waiting to speak with the airline.

Wannabe traveller Katrina told Radio 2GB’s Ben Fordham she spent eight and a half hours on hold with Qantas.

A screenshot of a phone log shows she spent eight hours and 39 minutes on the call – with the frustrated flyer joking the bulk of the call was in the last nine minutes. 

Would-be traveller Katrina said she spent more than eight hours with Qantas hold music playing

Ben Fordham's (pictured) show featured anecdotes from numerous disgruntled Qantas customers who complained about wait times that went for multiple hours

Ben Fordham’s (pictured) show featured anecdotes from numerous disgruntled Qantas customers who complained about wait times that went for multiple hours

‘I took the call to a meeting, I took the call to an eatery,’ Katrina said.

‘It was a two-hour meeting and we had the music playing in the background the whole time.’ 

The complaint joins a chorus of unhappy customers as Qantas cops heat for wait times and fees. 

‘These wait times are not acceptable, and we apologise to customers who have waited so long to get through to us,’ said a Qantas spokesperson. 

Qantas has apologised and says they are working on the issue but many customers are still reporting call centre wait times of over an hour

Qantas has apologised and says they are working on the issue but many customers are still reporting call centre wait times of over an hour

Earlier this week Fordham’s show featured disgruntled Qantas customers who were upset with what they saw as a decrease in service quality after the pandemic.

On Tuesday, customers unleashed on the airline’s ‘terrible’ customer service with one passenger claiming he was forced to wait more than six hours on the phone to resolve a simple query.

Another traveller said they were charged $800 to change flights, while one claimed they were bizarrely put through to a customer service agent in South Africa after several hours on hold.

A third woman woman said one of her parents’ connecting flights was changed to the day before their first flight arrived, forcing them to endure a ridiculous five-day layover before resuming their trip.

The discussion kicked off when a listener named Todd called in claiming he was on hold with Qantas for six hours and 31 minutes.

Todd claimed that after complaining about his six-hour wait, he was told to ring another number to sort out his booking – which ended up being the same line he was already on.

Pictured is a screenshot of one Qantas customer's call to customer service after waiting more than five hours to get through

Pictured is a screenshot of one Qantas customer’s call to customer service after waiting more than five hours to get through 

Another listener, who wanted to get a credit for a cancelled flight due to Covid, said he had enough time to leave his phone at home and go for a walk during the lengthy wait.

‘I waited for two and a half hours, but I left the phone on the kitchen table and took the dog for a walk,’ he told 2GB. 

When someone finally picked up he was told he had to speak to Flight Centre instead of Qantas.

One man said his wife was told to cough up a whopping $800 to change her flight home to Sydney from New Zealand after she caught Covid and had to reschedule.

Another disgruntled caller, Catherine Rae, told Daily Mail Australia her parent’s multi-stop flight back from the UK to Perth last month was incorrectly rescheduled. 

Frustrated Qantas customers have claimed they were put on hold for more than six hours while trying to resolve rescheduled and cancelled flights (pictured, passengers at Sydney Airport)

Frustrated Qantas customers have claimed they were put on hold for more than six hours while trying to resolve rescheduled and cancelled flights (pictured, passengers at Sydney Airport)

‘Before they even left they were told their flight from Darwin to Perth was rescheduled to the day before they even arrived into Darwin,’ Ms Rae said. 

‘I spent three hours on hold to get it sorted so their flights would be the next day.’

Then her parents were forced to make a long five-day layover in Darwin as the airline once again rescheduled their flights. 

‘Which was five days not spent with family,’ Ms Rae added. 

Ms Rae is also expecting her 67-year-old mother-in-law to fly in from the UK via a similar route, but her Qantas flight from Heathrow was cancelled, before she had to spend the night at another airport. 

Her mother-in-law, who is hard of hearing, was then supposed to fly the next day at 11am, before the flight was changed to 8pm later that day. 

Her flights were then rerouted with a lengthy trip added from Darwin to Melbourne before she arrives in Perth, with significant wait times at each airport.

‘This has caused her considerable stress and upset and she has been in tears with no one to really get answers from,’ Ms Rae said. 

‘I wonder how many other people are frustrated by the terrible communication and customer service from Qantas.

‘You would think with them spending all this money on adverts and having two years of grounded flights they’d want to get their service right and retain customers where they can.’

A Qantas spokesperson said the wait times were unacceptable and apologised to customers who were affected by the delays.

They said the ‘complex’ nature of customer queries due to the pandemic have caused them to be ‘on average taking 50 per cent longer to resolve’.

One disgruntled customer told 2GB he 'waited for two and a half hours, but I left the phone on the kitchen table and took the dog for a walk', before resuming the call (pictured, passengers at Sydney Airport)

One disgruntled customer told 2GB he ‘waited for two and a half hours, but I left the phone on the kitchen table and took the dog for a walk’, before resuming the call (pictured, passengers at Sydney Airport)

‘Given the volume and the increased complexity of customer queries, it will take some time for call wait times to normalise,’ the spokesperson said. 

‘No airline’s contact centres were designed to be able to manage the record number of calls and complexity of Covid-related queries, which continue to impact customer wait times as people re-book travel that’s been delayed for the past two years.

‘We’re also seeing a fresh wave of calls with every change to a border somewhere in the world, as Covid restrictions are wound back, which often occur at no notice.’

They also said they have hired ‘hundreds’ of new call centre recruits and continue to do so each month. 

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk