Last week Qantas came under fire in the general media for keeping a customer on hold for 15 hours when he needed to confirm an international booking.

The airline has made detailed rebuttals of the claims made by Andrew Kahn, who gave this interview to the Herald-Sun on Friday.

But Qantas has either lied to the media, or its systems and processes are so badly managed that even the most fundamental requirements of being in business in relation to keeping track of bookings, calls and revenues are in disarray. Shades of One-Tel?

Kahn has now accessed his Optus account and found, in a few keystrokes, the record of his call that the world’s supposedly most profitable and only investment grade airline either couldn’t find or denied having.

This is a screen shot of his Optus usage.

If the resolution is still hard to read, the critical line says Kahn was connected to a Qantas call centre on 131313 for 15 hours, 39 minute and 48 seconds.  And was billed $769.41 for his persistence.

In his email Kahn notes:

Outside of my call log, whilst Qantas maintains it does not have a record of my call, I now also have an account from OPTUS confirming my call. Please see attached. It’s a screenshot …  as the bill cycle is not complete. However Optus, given circumstances, will not be charging me for the call.

I think much is misunderstood. Most instances of poor customer care aren’t newsworthy.

My story, what happened to be a story of shame for Qantas, was for everybody who ever received substandard service – even staying on a line for 5 minutes too long.

Kahn points out that he travels frequently and far and knows good and bad service when he experiences either.

The questions remain. Did Qantas lie? Or is it incompetent?