Call Wait Times

Date: July 26, 2022

“We are experiencing higher-than-normal call volumes.”

If you’ve attempted to contact the company any time in the past year, you’re surely familiar with that line. You’re also presumably familiar that more times than not it may take hours until you are connected to a company representative. And by hours, we have reports of some calls exceeding four hours and higher.

A few weeks ago, with your support, we began tracking call wait times by requesting you provide us with your actual times on hold including pictures for documentation. Being on hold for over four hours or even an hour when you need to conduct basic schedule and other needs is excessive.

In addition to the hold times for scheduling, we continue to receive reports of our Members arriving at their layover destination without lodging, facing long wait times for hotel rooms, and again, extensive hold times for crew lodging support.  As a reminder, per our Contract, Flight Attendants are reimbursed for actual lodging expenses including transportation and phone charges when we have to find hotel rooms ourselves.

While it’s reasonable to attribute some of the scheduling issues we’re experiencing to the company’s current tightly packed flight schedules and the occasional weather-related incident, management’s response to us, the internal customer, is completely within their ability to fix. It’s time for management to address the many issues that affect Flight Attendant quality of life and working conditions. As dedicated Flight Attendants, each of us consistently focuses on doing the things that help bring United’s passengers back for another flight.  

Last week, we reported on the delivery of a letter to John Slater letting him know how you feel about current quality of life and working conditions. One of the ways we show management how serious the problem has become is by showing them irrefutable data. The more data we have, the harder it is for the company to make excuses. The reports you help generate is yet another way for management to see us standing together as a unified workgroup.

We need you to continue to report on call wait times. Report on any of the excessive call wait times to get through to crew scheduling, and the Flight Attendant Service Center to conduct routine tasks such as calling off sick leave, obtaining hotel information, changes to reserve assignments and the list goes on. Please fill out the Call Wait Times (CWT) Report Form. 

United’s internal reporting system is not always accurately reflecting what Flight attendants are experiencing, for instance if you get disconnected or hang up. Only your reports can push this issue into the light where management will have to address it. United Flight Attendants are waiting way too long in their attempts to get through to current management to accomplish the basic functions of their jobs.

Enough is Enough. Focus on Us!