Best recommendation for a smooth experience is stay at home or be proactive and get your ducks in a row, answer your own questions using the internet, expect delays and cancellations.

That's lovely.

What if their online site simply doesn't work because your itinerary is slightly more complex than a single point-to-point flight?

Ah, then you have no choice but to access customer services. In fact the websites often tell you to contact customer services because the website encountered an error.

But... of course... you literally cannot access customer services... unless you're willing to burn a few whole days (not just 8 hours, but 16) in queues, retrying over and over and over again.

Thanks for that advice to get all your ducks lined up in a row, though. Rather incredible that anybody thinks that this isn't being done before attempting to call customer services.

Nobody wants to have to burn hours of their lifetime waiting or redialing or reattempting to contact customer services. It is what they usually do when there is literally no other option.