How to Contact Your Airline Now
If you had plans to travel to Europe this summer, and especially next month, then Trump’s latest travel ban probably caught your attention.
Starting Friday, a 30-day ban prohibits non-US citizens from flying into the United States if they have visited a number of European countries in the past 14 days. In particular, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The idea behind the ban is to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. While you can technically still be able to return to the US if you decide to take a vacation in Europe (don’t), you should also expect the number of flights between Europe and the US to drop dramatically. This means that your flight also has a pretty good chance of being canceled.
This is a situation that prompted a lot of people to try to contact their airline today and, as a result, caused quite a long wait time to speak to a person at customer service. Some people report waiting times of 4 hours or more. Not really perfect.
If you’re trying to contact your airline about a flight issue, you have a few more options than just calling this main customer service number.
Log in to your airline’s website or app
If you just want to change your plane ticket, you can probably do it without human assistance. Just go straight to the mobile app or website of your airline. Nearly all major airlines are waiving flight change fees due to occur between now and March 31st.
Visit your airline’s website for specific policies. Right now, you may want to consider canceling your ticket entirely, or rescheduling your flight for the fall, rather than just canceling your ticket once your current travel ban ends.
This is certainly an evolving situation, and while most airlines are waiving change fees right now, in most cases they only allow you to make one change to that ticket. This means that if you change your flight for a time that also turns out to be a bad choice, you will not be able to change it in sequence again.
Use a special “elite line”
If you have status with the airline you are flying with, you can use a phone line designed specifically for elite travelers. While these phone lines likely have significant latency as well, the line is likely to be slightly shorter than if you were dialing the main line.
If you don’t have elite status but have a friend or colleague, you can also ask them to call on your behalf. Your experience may vary depending on this approach, but in most cases, if your friend has the appropriate status to use the number, he may ask the agent to help you when he finally connects.
Try Twitter
The customer service agents who manage your airline’s Twitter account can do much the same thing other people do when you call.
If you have a general booking question, then Twitter may be your best bet. Through DM, you can also potentially change or cancel your flight and do the rest over the phone.
As with this main phone line, Twitter reps are overwhelmed right now, so be prepared to wait for a response.
And if you don’t need to talk to your airline right now , you might be better off waiting a few days to get in touch with them. All means of communication are likely to disappear today as the travel ban is so new – if you can give it a few days, you could potentially cut your waiting time by a few hours.