Seating problems on a flight from Honolulu triggered a complaint - and a surprising auto-reply. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Seating problems on a flight from Honolulu triggered a complaint - and a surprising auto-reply. Photo / Brett Phibbs
An Air New Zealand passenger who lodged an email complaint with the airline after a seating botch-up was told he may have to wait up to eight weeks to get a reply.
The frequent flyer found another passenger in his pre-selected seat when he boarded a plane from Honolulu toAuckland, upsetting plans to keep his family together on the flight.
He was then surprised when after immediately lodging a complaint via email to get the following reply: "Thank you for contacting Air New Zealand Customer Services. A member of our team will respond to your email within 6-8 weeks."
"I'm not aware of any business that has an auto-response that says they'll get back to you in six to eight weeks," said the disappointed traveller.
He said he was not so worried about his own situation but wanted to highlight the length of time it would take to get a reply from the national carrier from which he expected better service.
This afternoon the airline's chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty said the volume of messages, calls and emails was growing as more customers were travelling.
''At the moment, our email response time is definitely not where we want it to be and we're putting in place measures to ensure we can get back to our customers within a more reasonable timeframe.''
This includes increasing the support for its email response team, which after training, will be increasing in strength from eight to 18 from Wednesday next week.
Geraghty said that via our social channels, the average response time currently is within a week.
''There are a number of ways our customers can get in touch with us and we always endeavour to respond as quickly as we can,'' she said.
Leanne Geraghty, Air NZ's chief customer and sales officer. Photo / Brett Phibbs
''Customers with upcoming travel are prioritised and we're working incredibly hard to reduce wait times across all our channels.''
Earlier this year the airline had to urgently hire 200 call centre staff to boost numbers to 450 as they dealt with the surge in the number of inquiries which have become more complex as customers use credits for flights. Passengers were waiting for hours to talk to staff and in May Geraghty asked customers to ''bear with us''.
Separately the airline today unveiled its long-awaited new app, for launch in early November.
New features will be created based on live feedback and input from customers and what they'd like to see to improve their digital travel experience.
The app also allows Air New Zealand to be more responsive with improvements in a constantly changing post-pandemic travel environment, the airline says.
Air New Zealand's chief digital officer Nikhil Ravishankar said the new app has been a year in the making, building on the work the airline did to integrate key travel documentation such as My Vaccine Pass and the New Zealand Traveller Declaration into the Airpoints profile.
"We're fortunate to have an engaged customer base who regularly use the Air NZ app while travelling around New Zealand and abroad, and we want them to share their feedback and tell us what they want to see introduced into the app next," he said.
"This could be enabling a contactless journey through airports, allowing customers to track their baggage status or customise their entertainment and meal experience ahead of their flight; we're listening and will be using this feedback to shape the future roadmap of the Air NZ app."
Complete with a new look and designed to make our customers' day of travel experience that much smoother, customers can now see all upcoming flights and key information in chronological order in the app.
With one click they can view all flight details with options to select a seat, add a bag, upgrade or select any add-ons, and of course order a coffee in the lounge, ensuring customers have everything they need for a stress-free trip.
The new app will be rolled out in early November. For customers who have already downloaded the existing Air NZ app and have enabled automatic app updates, the app will update automatically.
