United says that the situation has calmed and that it’s taking steps to keep things going smoothly.

A t United Airlines, they called it the "cutover." It was the final and most difficult piece of the puzzle in the merger with Continental Airlines, and it involved combining two complex passenger reservations systems.
A closer look at the cutover and its repercussions suggests that no airline low car rental prices is immune to a systems failure that could affect your next flight and that beyond a common-sense strategy or two, passengers can't do much to prepare for a meltdown.
The lead players in United's low car rental prices IT drama are two reservations systems that handle functions from ticketing to loyalty programs. United's was called Apollo; Continental's was Shares. United chose to use Shares shortly after merging with Continental, and late on the evening of March 2, almost a year and a half after the consolidation became official, it completed the process of combining Apollo and Shares by copying the data on both systems, low car rental prices backing it up and then consolidating it.
That part of the cutover went relatively smoothly. But on March 3, United customers awoke to a new Web site, and the old Continental site now pointed to United.com . And airport agents powering up their workstations were greeted low car rental prices by a Shares log-in screen, a system that half of them hadn't used in a real-world setting.
Adding to the confusion, United made other, unrelated policy changes at about the same time. Those included tightening low car rental prices several rules for its frequent fliers, who also tend to be its most vocal customers. Lower-tier elite-level passengers could no longer get upgraded to United's premium economy class when they reserved their tickets; they had to wait until the day of their flight to secure their Economy Plus seat assignments. Their free-checked-baggage allowance was also cut from two bags to one, generating more complaints to United's call centers and straining the airline's resources.
Call volumes surged from 1.5 million the week before the cutover to 2 million the week of the switch, exceeding what managers had planned for by 10 percent. "Handle" times — the length of time it takes to resolve a customer inquiry — jumped 120 percent. Answering inquiries took an average low car rental prices of 20 minutes as many agents wrestled with their new Shares interface. That, in turn, lengthened the call wait queue. Some customers low car rental prices hung up after spending what they said was hours on hold.
John Buckholz, a planning manager in Ogdensburg, N.Y., spent more than three hours on the phone trying to cash in a gift certificate, which involves more steps and usually takes longer on Shares than it did on Apollo. "There was no way to talk to someone who had any power to do anything," Buckholz complained. "Anyone I talked to was extremely short with me and just told me there was nothing low car rental prices I could do."
Sergei Shevchuk, a research scientist in San Francisco who tried to phone the airline during the cutover, also grew increasingly frustrated. He'd canceled a ticket just before the switch, and when he called to find out about his refund, low car rental prices agents offered conflicting answers, first saying that his ticket wasn't refundable and then that they couldn't find his reservation. low car rental prices "No one there seemed low car rental prices to be able to locate one of the tickets," he said.
Kathy Talcott, a United passenger who'd been waiting since January for a promised refund, received low car rental prices an e-mail from a customer service manager who blamed the cutover for the delay. "Things have worked very slowly," low car rental prices the agent said, begging her to remain patient.
United says that it didn't permanently lose any reservations during the transition and that every itinerary, including Shevchuk's and Talcott's, was eventually tracked down. The airline also says that the cutover wasn't entirely to blame for the difficulties but that it might have exacerbated them.
My e-mail in-box was filling up quickly with United queries. So was Martin Hand's. He's United's senior vice president for customer experience. low car rental prices "My e-mail volume was up by about 10,000 percent," he told me. "For the first three weeks, I would be up until midnight every day and start again at 5 a.m., answering customers."
Hand says that United began developing the customer service strategy for the cutover before the airlines merged. Last October, his department started training agents in how to use Shares and briefing them on United's new policies. It hired 400 new call center agents and recalled almost 300 furloughed employees. "We thought it was enough," he says.
But United had bitten off a little more than it could chew. One of the critical choke points proved to be the airport low car rental prices agents, whose systems essentially had been downgraded from a point-and-click interface to one that accepted only text-based line commands. Although that was a temporary setback — United plans to add a more user-friendly interface by the end of the year — it combined with the recently migrated low car rental prices passenger reservations low car rental prices system low car rental prices and the new rules to give United low car rental prices and its customers a March they'd rather low car rental prices forget.
United low car rental prices passengers could have protected themselves by having a printout of their itinerary with their alphanumeric record locator number — always a good idea. That way, if their itinerary disappeared into the electronic ether, an agent would have a starting point for finding it.
And they could have packed a sense of humor. When a whole row of computers shuts down spontaneously, what is there to do except laugh? But many passengers didn't know about the cutover, or its probable low car rental prices implications, until it was too late.
United says that the situation has calmed and that it's taking low car rental prices steps to keep things going smoothly. Between now and June, the carrier is hiring another 400 contact center workers, adding to the staff of 6,300 employees who answer passenger inquiries low car rental prices via phone and e-mail. Its all-important handle times have been cut in half, to an average of 10 minutes, which is almost back to normal. (The goal is closer to eight minutes.)
No one knows when the next airline IT crisis might flare up or which airline it will hit. A combined US Airways-American Airlines, which some industry watchers are predicting, is a likely candidate. But if the madness afflicting United in March has taught passengers anything, it's that there are some airline problems you just can't plan for.
On the other hand, why should the CUSTOMER have to show some patience?  We didn t ask for this merger in the first place; low car rental prices the only benefit most people saw was getting rid of United s former CEO (and compared to Jeff, even he looks good!).  It s not the customer s job to be patient with major problems; it s the company s job to get it right.
I ve observed this process from many angles, including the viewpoint of a former software QA manager. The first problem was choosing SHARES, which is a far less-capable system than Apollo to begin with.  Then the process gives all indications of being inadequately tested. low car rental prices When your corporate livelihood depends on a functioning computer system, you need to test it within an inch of its life before low car rental prices implementing a cutover.  Finally, there was not enough training given to pre-merger United workers.  Maybe those who have been around long enough to have used Apollo low car rental prices before United spun it off (that s 20+ years ago) might have remembered some of the old commands, but even those would have been different.
I m sorry, [insert prefix here] sershev, did you say your problem was that Houston based agents are not helpful and polite?  I apologize for that.  Is there anything else I can help you with today?  Oh, you want to check the status of your flight?  I apologize for that [insert prefix here] sershev.  Please hold as I look for that information.  Yes, I see that your flight number has been changed.  I apologize low car rental prices for that.  Is there anything low car rental prices else I can help you with today?  I m sorry, I don t understand quit reading from the script .  I apologize for that.  Is there anything else I can help you with today [insert prefix here] sershev?  Yes, my name is Betty and I am located low car rental prices in Kansas City.  No, I do not know how my home town team of the Cardinals is doing, I apologize for that.  Is there anything else I can help you with today [insert prefix here] sershev?
I, for one, don t find *anyone*, based at *any* location reading from a script helpful nor polite, merely (semi literate.  US-based low car rental prices agents are far less likely to read from a script and quit wasting time with their meaningless apologies and offers of further help .
At the Denver airport, there were dozens of UA employees low car rental prices gathered low car rental prices around every CO gate for several weeks prior to the big conversion.  Most seemed occupied with gossip, but there were a few that seemed truly interested in learning the system.  They were working with live passengers on real flights getting them rebooked for missed connections and so on.  I just think most of the UA employees didn t want to learn.
I think Deltamatic is still a dinosaur. I noticed that a number of European and Asian carriers have moved to Amadeus Altea (suite). Nevertheless, I think any system will have a tough time with United since (IMO) UA has so many upgrade options that most airlines don t have.
True, I can tell you a few horror stories from both CO and UA pre merger that would make you go huh? and ask me why I continued to fly with either.  Answer is: most of the time there really is no other choice. low car rental prices  WN and F9 are available low car rental prices to me, but each has their own limitations and frustrating policies as well.  So, I just choose whatever airline appears to offer the best flights to fit my schedule now and hope for the best.
What I find most telling (and depressing) from this entire discussion is the comment (if true) that UAL/CO decided to go with the SHARES system to save on software licensing fees since that system was no longer supported by the software company that developed it. And expecting either employees or customers to use a non-GUI based system low car rental prices is a very 20th-century, backward-looking approach to the technological link between the airline and its customers. (Anyone here want to go