fastair

I will highlight (4) different factors.
1) Shares is a weaker system for arports (I think it is better for pre-airport stuations, except when you are taking about offline space, wher I think shares is worse across the board.

2) Shares is tougher on the agents. No GUI, lack of functionaity, or where functionality exists, it is cumbersome. Lack of trainin and experience come hereas well. Missing/inadequate scripts to automate processes, and a lack of a separate (and very good) system for airport use that Apollo had in ACI

3) Shares isn't (in it's current state) written/optomized for some of UA's rules/systems. Examples are a) UA operates more "thru flights" than Co did, and shares has many problems where this comes up. Shares (in the current CO form) isn't really built for (3)cabin aircraft (although CO had them in the past, that was years ago) and UA uses many 3 cabin aircraft both domesticly and intl.

4) The migration of reservations from UA to CO didn't transfer all of the data on 3/3, which has resulted in numerous etkts not in sync with the reservation, missing history in the PNR prior to 3/3 from UA migrated PNRs.

Some of the faults are Shares, some of them are migration issues or differing airline rules, some of them are poor planing dispite the PR that the company released that said everything was perfect (but has since become "things weren't perfect.") Some of these things will fix themselves, some are being fixed, and some will need to be adapted for.

Not from where I stand. At ORD, the CO success team members have difficulty with many of the things the UA agents are having difficulty with. Many problems we ask them to help us with, they cannot do quickly or at all. I have called the help desk maybe 3 times in the last month, but after asking a CO agent to assist on something, they have called the help desk more than me. (granted many of the COs success team members at ORD aren't active employees, but retiees, some who had retired many years ago, and some of them currently working the gates have never worked at the gates in their entire career, so have no on the job knowledge of the gate functions.)

LarkSFO

Thank you for your insights.

So, are new reservations (made 3/3 or later) experiencing less issues than older (pre 3/3) reservations?

fastair

Without question. I believe they also re-ran some "syncing" and migrating systems as well to correct many o the PNRs a couple of weeks ago. The 1st few weeks, I might start a trip up at the gate and have to manualy "sync" the etkt up to the reservation prior to boarding, now, som flights I only have a couple to do. Also older PNRs are gettng used and newer ones are being created, dilluting the pool of migrated PNRs with fresh new ones built from scratch. Only 9.5 more months until they are all gone!

There are a few things that I have seen shares let happen that must have happened prior to the cutover as no fundamental change to the logic has happened that impacts this, that are just too big to mention. The ability for ticket fraud would be there if I mentioned the details, and I would not mention that to outsiders as not everyone on the internet is an upstanding person (i.e. a thread just today on "is it ok to negotate DB comp, and then after the door closes reneg becuase I haven't signed a waiver in order to extort more out of the airline?")

The CO folk I have worked with just didn't realize their system was so bad, as they had no comparison product to guage it against. Does a person born into slavery really know that freedom is a much better product when never exposed to it? Does a person who has never had prim rib and baked alaska think that his 7-11 chimchanga and slurpee isn't the top of the pops in food prducts?

EsquireFlyer

1. "Half-assed operation" is an opinion, but claims such as "fraction of the planes, destinations, and options" are objective facts (number of planes, number of destinations, number of classes of service, etc.), are they not? So how can they "not be supported any the factual evidence," unless the claims are literally false?

2. I think there is also a small but vocal group who repeatedly insists that PMCO was better than PMUA in almost every way and therefore had no need for change or improvement. Since you are criticizing the existence of a "small but vocal group" on the UA side, do you admit or deny the existence of such a group on the CO side?

3. The "small but vocal group" claim was made on the coffee thread, too, saying that most people were fine with the PMCO coffee. But the poll blew that claim away, as a large majority hated the coffee, and even major newspapers and UA spokespeople admitted that the Journeys blend received incredibly poor reviews, and had not been tested in the air prior to being rolled out. And it was replaced with Kova. So: just because a few members of a group are "vocal" does not mean that the entire group is small. And even if a group seems to be "small but vocal"--that does not mean that they are wrong.

4. Calling critics a "small but vocal" group is a textbook PR strategy (cf. Tilton dismissing the "vocal minority" of pissed-off UA crew members), and it's way overused.

!! Did we read the same thread? The one I read said something more like: "If UA asks me to VDB, but they don't specify the compensation until after they close the door, and it turns out to be a lowball offer (providing an actual example of a VDB where the pax received only a $10 meal voucher!), can I refuse to sign the VDB slip, and if so, would I be entitled to compensation at the IDB standard?"

Which is nothing like "negotate DB comp, and then after the door closes reneg becuase I haven't signed a waiver in order to extort more out of the airline."

demkr

SHARES stunk pre-3/3, and it stinks post-3/3.

tuolumne

There's also a hoard of snarky loyalists who had such a connection to Continental that they feel personally maligned and subsequently lash out at any hint of criticism. They use some of the most transparent messaging tactics there are to shape the status quo. It worked to great effect in the sealed CO PR vaccum, but as uproar like this shows, it has no place in the new company.

Absolutely comical that the newest floated line is that the integration issues are actually a result of legacy UA staff. The CO PR machine is shameless.

fastair

We read the same thread, but I think you integrated some of the replies into the original question:

"DB Ethics

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Volunteered for a flight, but was not given the documents to sign until the jet bridge was pulled and the plane was gone. The compensation was 400, so no complaints, but I wonder if some unscrupulous person could say that's not enough and not sign the documents until the agent raised the comp, threatening to force an IDB if they did not. In the DOT's eyes/ legally is it only agreed to when you've signed on the dotted line? Or does clicking yes on the kiosk count as an agreement? Debate... "

The OP clearly mentioned "some unscrupulous person" implying that their motivations hypotheticaly were not with scrupels, then bacly tried to extort by "not signing the documnts until the agent RAISED the comp", which implies the comp offered and accepted would no longer suffice.

Same thread, different readings of it. I read it as an ethical question (as the title stated) and the body showed extortion after reneging once the plane had left, but prior to signing, which upon re-reading, is still the same. That OP never said nor implid no comp was pre-agreed uon. He did state in his hypothetical situation that the customer wanted them to raise it, implying that there had, in fact been a pre-determined level. The evidence does support even in the thead title, that it is a question about a hypothetical ethicaly challeneged individual, not about the airline low balling the customer.

All that is 2ndary to the fact that even if I thought (never gonna happen) that everyone on the internet had the higest moral standards, I still wouldn't post ways to defraud my employeer, which brings this tangent back to the thread we are on.

sbm12

Yes, the number of destinations, planes, ASMs and classes of service can be supported by real facts. The problem is that many of the claims don't accurately reflect those facts.

Denying the existence of something that plainly exists is foolish. Anyone who claims that any company could not improve is myopic at best. There are undoubtedly people who are holding on to dreams of what they thought the old carriers were on both sides of this merger. In neither case are they likely seeing the whole picture versus simply what was best for themselves personally. Then again, for most folks what is best for them personally overrides everything else. Makes it hard to have a discussion about what is best for the company or the bulk of the company's customers.

That said, I do find it interesting that most threads appear to start with an attack on the new systems couched in terms that suggest the legacy CO standards are to blame. After that the discussion inevitably veers all over the place, trying to settle on something resembling reality. Reality is that the new system is neither PMCO nor PMUA. Neither is the airline. They really did take chunks of both companies - policies and systems - and merge them into one. And they are having some issues with the integration process, but none that are debilitating to the company and the issues are decreasing over time, just like one would expect.

Doesn't mean they are right, either. That's why I tend to look at the claims they are making and the facts on which they are basing them.

Yes, the miles crediting issues are very real and they are annoying. They are also much more significant today than they were 6 months ago IME. But when people circle back to that being the main indicator of how messed up the migration has been I cannot help but laugh. It is such a small piece of the whole migration/integration that claiming it as representative of anything major is silly. Doesn't mean that it they should ignore it or that it doesn't matter at all. But it isn't nearly as significant as things like being able to take and process reservations and to get the flights out on time with the booked passengers on them. And these functions are very much tied to the functionality of the PSS.

mogulskiir

Well said. ^^

I have had to waste 5+ hours of my time getting what would have and has been accomplished automatically for me over the past 8 years of being a 1K under United's old reservations system. Their upgrade system is completely broken IMO. I would go into details but I don't feel like writing a novel however will provide one quick example. Also I don't know if it is Shares or new policy but I have been wait listed for a comp domestic upgrade under 24 hours while there is both R and I availability and told sorry the system clears you and we can't manually do it. Then upon checking in I got a message saying I can confirm my upgraded seat now for about $399 (I was 3 on the waitlist of 30+ with 2 seats left) but when I checked in my friend who was on a award ticket he got a upgrade offer for about $99. I never cleared by the way. This never happened under the United system and the fare difference was far more than the upgrade offers. I would love to know the truth about selling upgrades. If they continue to take $100 from a general member who would have spent $50 checking two bags anyway instead of giving elites comp upgrades then Shares or no Shares I don't think United will do very well as high spending Elites will leave.

halls120

Indeed. It is also interesting how there was an outcry of outrage when another poster first raised the "shills" allegation - where's the outrage about this unfounded and baseless allegation?

Regardless of how Shares worked before 3/3, it isn't working all that well now, at least from a customer viewpoint.

mogulskiir

Thanks for the info in post #48 FastAir. Very interesting.

UA-NYC

I think it's a bit of a stretch to insinuate that those of us such as myself, who are critical of the post-3/3 regime, are opening up new accounts en masse to further stoke the anger against UA. News flash - the issues are already there.

I recognize that you are in the camp of some saying "planes are taking off and landing, on time rates aren't dramatically different, so things are fine". I respect that. However, I would think that's a price of entry with the industry, not the definition of success.

What I see and hear (both here as well as pax/FAs/GAs/pilots I speak with) are unhappy flyers at all elite levels (including GS, the one thing they had to try really hard to F up and actually did), random seat changes, UGs not only not clearing but being sold out deviously beneath their feet, miles not crediting, tickets not ticketing, UG/mileage instruments not redepositing automatically, CS calls being handled poorly / too long / not at all...the list goes on and on.

JBEagle1000G

LMAO!
That's awesome.
I've heard a similar sentiment from a poor CO agent running around the UC at LAX, helping 6 PMUA agents. The agents looked like they just wanted to go home. Felt horrible they could'nt provide the same service.
The CO agent, exhausted, mentioned he didn't know their system was so lacking, and that taking on a network as large as United, must've really been taxing the system, and it's issues were really rearing their ugly heads. He was a power user and said the system was doing really weird things he was dumbfounded by.
He was very nice the PMUA folks. Said they were basically "new hires" at their own company and were learning really well.

This PMUA flyer's impression is that Shares ran "ok" for CO....but this massive company is really tripping it up. I blame the new management likely not listening to their IT staff (happens all the time) and just chooing whatever system they wanted.
IMO they should've just rented Apollo for another year or so, and then went to the shiny new HP system I keep hearing about.
Apollo/Fastair was already handling a massive, more complex airline, maybe it would've had less teething problems taking on more CO work. I'm sure it wouldn't have been perfect. But at least the CO folks would've had a bit easier time learning a newer, GUI system.

goalie

Bolding mine: So is it broken or not? As to the ancillary systems you mention, can you share what they might be and as to training, I agree with you 100% as there was, imho and what I've heard first hand from UA employees, a failure in the training (or adequate lack there of) priovided

And it failed because simple things like one airline having 3 cabin aircraft and the other not having 3 cabin aircraft and not being able to properly transition that "issue", and it failed because one airline was able able to do instant ticketing and one was not not (which in this day and age of technology is imho, inexcusable) and it failed because there was (again, imho) a major lack of training for the front line employees and it failed because after 3+ weeks, the airline finally acknowledged that there were problems by sending out a "we're sorry e-mail".

Bolding mine: Agreed and it does not matter to the customer-what matters to the customer is that their reservation remains intact, they can check-in for their flight and arrive at their destination without problems-Which we all know there have been many

Bolding mine: Yet above you say, "Based on that I'm not particularly willing to say that anything is broken".

Bolding mine: You got that right ^ (but sadly, the opposite seems to hold true )

Correct-it is simply being said that it IS broken and needs to be fixed (which is happening at a snail's pace)

Ok, you're a cynic (hey, you said to say it ) but let's not go down the road of making accusations and/or assumptions that there is a "gang of 11" as that and the accusations and/or assumptions that some are being paid by the new airline to post in a favorable light accomplishes nothing . We can all have our opinions but comments along those lines should not be made (just mho).


Agreed on both points ^

iluv2fly

There are some here who, no matter what one can point out to the contrary, will continue to defend SHARES in its current usage and state (whatever that may mean).

Nothing will convince them otherwise. Plain (or plane) and simple.

It was not ready to be deployed when it was. It's limitations are customer unfriendly. Perhaps it was created for a small regional airline, but it is ineffective with a global one.

Two examples from yesterday. I was in the GS check-in area at ORD. We were discussing SHARES. One agent said that she received an email which chastised her for doing something pro-customer. She said that on a through-flight, she upgraded a passenger on an international leg (and plenty of upgrade space available) when both segments didn't have upgrade space. That is a no-no. Stupid.

The other: A passenger was coming in from an international flight on another one of these through-flights. He purchased Duty Free and wanted to check his bag with said Duty Free to his final domestic destination. No can do, he was told, since you didn't check the bag overseas initially, you can't do it now. She tried and tried, but couldn't help the customer do it. End result: someone enjoyed the Duty Free liquor he purchased in Europe. Stupid.

Now I know some here will make excuses for this, but do us a favor - save the time and don't bother telling people here who really care about the customer. I -and I am sure many others here - really don't want to hear it again.