U.S. airlines are grappling with a problem currently plaguing numerous businesses and industries - lots of work, not enough employees.
In a great article in USA Today, Dawn Gilbertson chronicled an issue that has become all too familiar to employers and the domino effect it is causing, especially for airlines.
You thought you had problems with the long wait time at security checkpoints at airports? Check this out: when a customer called Delta Air Lines last month to rebook a flight, he was told by the automated system that the hold time before speaking to a representative would be seven hours and 40 minutes.
According to Gilbertson, travelers returning to the skies this summer after COVID lockdowns can add long wait times to reach airlines to the already lengthy list of frustrations as travel rebounds more quickly than even airline executives expected. One traveler said in a Twitter post that she accidentally fell asleep while on hold with an unnamed airline and was still on hold when she woke up.
USA Today called the customer service lines of the 10 largest U.S. airlines on Wednesday, June 2, in the afternoon and found waits as long as eight hours and 31 minutes at Delta. The airline was so swamped, it didn't even offer a callback option.
American quoted a wait of between two hours and 28 minutes and three hours and 23 minutes but offered the unique option of scheduling a call anytime in the next week.
JetBlue had the next-longest wait at 75 minutes.
Calls to Hawaiian Airlines and budget carrier Allegiant resulted in repeated busy signals.
Julie Rath, vice president of customer experience and reservations at American Airlines, said staffing levels weren't an issue until travel started to rebound.
Rath said American started to notice an increase in calls in April as COVID vaccination rates increased and people started thinking about traveling again, with a big spike beginning in May as summer travel season loomed.
"The volume came back really rapidly,'' she said. "The calls do take a bit longer."
Fortunately, in Gilbertson's unscientific experiment, calls to United and Southwest resulted in waits of only 20 minutes or less.
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