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Airlines' Customer Service collapsed: comments of travelers
 Travelers are heavily criticizing Airlines for bad customer service after recent storms on the East Coast, resulting thousands stranded and unable to get through to reservation agents. The general observations are that Airlines have chosen tactics of blaming everything on the weather and take themselves off the hook.
"We don't blame the airlines or airports for bad weather, but it's their responsibility to be prepared," said Brandon Macsata of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights. "The airlines just seem to be saying, 'Suck it up.' People are tired of sucking it up."
Once travelers called to rebook flights in huge amounts were put on hold for hours or told to call back later due to general inability of major airlines to ensure appropriate amount of reservations agents to take their calls.
For instance, Continental closed 600 call-center jobs — about one-fourth of its 2,600 reservations workers — in February. A few months before that, it closed a center in Florida and cut 500 jobs. American Airlines cut about 500 when it closed a center in Connecticut.
United Airlines has 10,000 customer-service and reservations employees, compared with 15,000 in the early 2000s, according to Rich Delaney, president of the machinists' union, which represents the workers. United once had 17 reservations offices; it now has just three, he said.
The Airlines consolidate personnel because so many individuals now book their flights on Web. The Airlines themselves always encouraged this trend by charging customers a fee to book over the phone.
Company US Airways initiated the mode of mandatory overtime for customer-service workers to manage inbound calls during the storm. American Airlines asked workers to suspend short vacations and extend the hours of part-time workers at call centers and airports.
However, it wasn't enough to manage massive amounts of calls that was more than twice as high as usual, according to American spokesman Ed Martelle. Travelers were unable to get basic information from airline employees, being exhausted and worn out.
"I waited four hours in the queue just to speak to someone — just to get the news that I have to wait a few more days," said Tommy Mokhtari, who was stranded at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport while trying to get home to Dubai. "They really need to have a backup plan.
Some travelers had better experience calling travel agents back home instead of dealing with airline agents standing a few feet away.
Major U.S. airlines have canceled more than 9,400 flights during the storms. The airlines have declined to say how many passengers have been put out, but given that many holiday-week flights were sold out, an estimate of more than 1 million is not unreasonable.
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