Passenger Buys Newspaper Ad After Failed Attempts At Contacting Air NZ

Passenger Buys Newspaper Ad After Failed Attempts At Contacting Air NZ

During this time, airlines are inundated at call centers and other customer service centers.  Many airlines have asked passengers for patience as they wait respond to numerous cancellation, refund, changes, etc. that come with the global pandemic’s impact to travel.  Well, one customer was reportedly not having any luck contacting Air New Zealand and decided to contact the airline with a classified ad.

The ad was placed in a New Zealand newspaper, and it was originally posted by a Twitter user.  The ad read, “All attempts to contact Air NZ have proved Futile.  Please contact the person flying on [record locator redacted].”  IMPORTANT: You should never post personal flight information in any public forum.  We wrote about the danger of posting your boarding pass on social media for this reason.  While the ad contains no additional personal information, somebody may be able to access your reservation.  For that reason, we are not linking to the post and have a picture here with that information redacted.

Air New Zealand reportedly responded to the customer and apologized for the inconvenience passengers are facing with delayed response times.  Obviously, they did not disclose any further details, so it’s unknown exactly what this customer was trying to do.

Bottom Line

It can definitely be frustrating to reach out to airlines during this time, as they call centers are inundated.  I haven’t had significant trouble getting in touch with American Airlines or Cathay Pacific.  However, it did take me three weeks to get in touch with somebody at AirAsia, and it was after my flight already departed.  So it’s not exactly hard to believe they were having trouble getting in touch with the airline.

But the greatest lesson of is not to include your record locator in any public forum.  You should protect it and avoid posting it.  That includes keeping your boarding pass, including your record locator, hidden.