Licence conversion delays frustrate

• Published date: 18 April 2024
• Publication title: Mountain Scene

However, Roger Venn, AA’s commercial & product GM, says they’ve been ‘‘working hard to employ and train new staff, which will give the agency more capacity to process applications’’

To reduce waiting times, the centre initially introduced an online booking system. But Jasmin, a Wanaka-based German, who only wants to be identified by her first name, says that’s not worked.

‘‘I clicked on approximately 90 different dates, and it was always the same message, ‘no availability on this day’.

‘‘You had to keep refreshing the calendar and you might just be lucky to get an appointment’’, says Jasmin, whose issue was an expired international translation on her German lifetime licence.

Venn says ‘‘we acknowledge, due to demand, bookings and slots have been filling up in advance’’.

Jasmin, who’s complained ‘‘multiple times’’ to AA, says on one visit to the Queenstown centre, off Glenda Dr, she witnessed within 15 minutes ‘‘how they sent eight people away, potentially with expired...