Lufthansa referred the deaf to the telephone hotline several times

A deaf Lufthansa customer wants to rebook his flight. However, the airline referred him several times to the telephone hotline. There is no other possibility.

Frankfurt – Lufthansa *, Germany’s largest airline, not only made a big faux pas in customer service, but also treated a deaf man in a discriminatory manner. The 33-year-old Lufthansa customer wanted to rebook his flight and turned to the airline for help on Saturday (December 25th, 2021) via the short message service Twitter.

There he wrote: “Hello! I am deaf and cannot call your service center in Canada. I need help with my booked (rebookable) flight because your online system does not allow me to postpone my rebookable flight at all. It says I have to call you! There is no email address! Please help me!”

Lufthansa refers deaf customers to the telephone hotline

An employee of the airline based at Frankfurt Airport * then stated that the Lufthansa social media team did not have access to the booking system. The man should call a Lufthansa Service Center. The Lufthansa customer continued to be patient and replied, “Yes, I know you are a social media team, but I thought I would tweet you guys to see if you could kindly give me other options than a phone call to do that Contact Service Center. Thank you again. ”He also emphasized once again that due to his deafness it is not possible for him to contact him by phone.

The Lufthansa employee seemed to ignore this and tweeted: “There is no e-mail to rebook a ticket. Please keep trying. ”Now it was obviously too much for the 33-year-old customer. “Good to know that this is bad service and discrimination. I will sue Lufthansa for discrimination against the disabled, ”he wrote.

Lufthansa employee does not mention communication options for deaf people in Canada

There is a chat bot on the Lufthansa website that customers can use to communicate. In addition, Lufthansa offers customers with hearing impairments, at least in Canada, communication via a text telephone or so-called teletype devices (TTY). Such a telephone receives characters instead of speech sounds.

The employee sent the customer the link to the Lufthansa website via Twitter, on which the corresponding service number can be found. In her conversation with the customer, however, she did not mention this option, but instead pointed out that rebooking had to be made “strictly” through the customer service team.

Lufthansa apologizes to the customer – communication options for deaf people still unclear

Lufthansa’s behavior aroused sharp criticism on social networks. One user wrote on Twitter: “I would be very happy if you sued Lufthansa. Denial of the existence of the hearing impaired is indeed a violation of the law. “

Three days after the incident, last Tuesday (December 28, 2021), another Lufthansa employee contacted the 33-year-old customer via Twitter. “We sincerely apologize for not addressing the problem! We regret that we couldn’t give a more helpful answer. ”If the customer has not yet been able to rebook his flight, he should contact the Lufthansa team via private message on Twitter, said the employee.

Lufthansa service for flight rebooking for deaf people remains unclear

How customers who are unable to call can rebook a flight remains unclear. According to the Lufthansa website, the service for using a text phone is not available in Germany and many other countries. (acg)

Due to a wave of illness among pilots, Lufthansa had to cancel numerous flights from Frankfurt Airport over Christmas *. * fnp.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA