AN exasperated EasyJet customer waited three hours, 20 minutes and 58 seconds to cancel a flight by phone – and still got cut off.
Liam Kenneally grimly held on through endless repeats of Ed Sheeran songs because he needed to cancel his flight within the 24 hour widow.
His marathon call was one of three he made to the airline which together amounted to more than five hours.
But the 25-year-old never got through and as a result lost the £166 he had paid to fly from Gatwick to Krakow, Poland.
Liam, from London, posted a screenshot from his mobile at three hours, eight minutes and 56 seconds, proving he had made the monster call to the airline. He asked EasyJet: “How am I supposed to meet the cancellation window – or is that the plan?”
Liam, who works in IT, booked his flight on Saturday afternoon and realised the following morning he could make the flight.
EasyJet have a 24 hour cancellation policy whereby customers only have to pay the cancellation fee.
He made a first call of just over an hour and failed to get through. His second effort, of a similar duration, also failed.
After his third call – which lasted considerably longer than the two hours 30 minutes flight to Krakow would have taken – he took to Facebook.
He told the airline: “I have been on hold for three hours, tweeted on Twitter and thought I would go true Omni-channel and give you a message on Facebook.
“This is my third call today, all of which have exceed one hour.
“If you add all these calls up and your obfuscation of the “Cancel flight” option. How am I supposed to meet the 24 hour cancellation window? Or is that the plan?”.
Liam tweeted this morning around 10:30am and added: I would still like to cancel my flight @easyJet /@easyJetCustHelp. If you would like to get in touch that would be great.
“I would rather not spend 3.5hours on hold again to be disconnected”.
Liam found what was meant to be a simple process excruciating.
Liam said today he believes the cancellation process is intentionally difficult.
Liam added: “It’s just frustrating really, as they mention a £25 fee if cancelled online, £30 if you cancel via their call centre.
“It’s a clear obfuscation of the ability to cancel the flight if there is an option online (As I am yet to find it).
He added: “I was expecting to lose the £30 booking fee, as the booking error was my fault, but the fact that it seems that the ability to cancel a flight is made intentionally difficult is wrong.
“It is more of the principle now, over the fact of the money”.
Liam is unlikely to book with EasyJet again.
Liam Continued: “I would avoid personally booking through EasyJet wherever possible in future. Unless absolutely unavoidable.
“Honestly, after the first 20 minutes, it became more of “How long will they keep me on hold”.
“The music was the best of the customer experience”.
A spokesman for EasyJet said: “We provide a comprehensive customer support service offering various ways for customers to contact us which includes our live chat, online and through our contact centres which are open 8am-8pm seven days a week.
“If a customer calls the call centre near the closing time all the calls in the queue will be answered even if this is after the call centre closes.
“We are sorry that this didn’t happen on this occasion and have apologised to Mr. Kenneally. As a result we are reviewing the current system to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
EasyJet also confirmed that Liam will not be required to pay any fee for his incident.
