15 November - UA Flights Impacted by Unimatic Computer System Outage
Nov 15, 2012, 9:56 am
#61
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Third major outage at UA since June:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/united...152237369.html
When combined with the March 3 failures, it is becoming increasingly clear that Smisek has not assembled the right team. Running the world's largest airline appears to be beyond his (and his team's) skillset.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/united...152237369.html
When combined with the March 3 failures, it is becoming increasingly clear that Smisek has not assembled the right team. Running the world's largest airline appears to be beyond his (and his team's) skillset.
Nov 15, 2012, 9:58 am
#62
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: YVR SFO
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Posts: 4,866
Third major outage at UA since June:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/united...152237369.html
When combined with the March 3 failures, it is becoming increasingly clear that Smisek has not assembled the right team. Running the world's largest airline appears to be beyond his (and his team's) skillset.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/united...152237369.html
When combined with the March 3 failures, it is becoming increasingly clear that Smisek has not assembled the right team. Running the world's largest airline appears to be beyond his (and his team's) skillset.
Nov 15, 2012, 10:00 am
#63
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Doesn't Smisek run all of it? He's been CEO for over 2 years now.
He also threw out the PMUA system and re-integrated Unimatic into SHARES, the CO computer system they kept. You use the website, so you see the quality of work his people do.
Just like last time, they blamed some router and backup router, but "SHARES was fine."
He also threw out the PMUA system and re-integrated Unimatic into SHARES, the CO computer system they kept. You use the website, so you see the quality of work his people do.
Just like last time, they blamed some router and backup router, but "SHARES was fine."
Nov 15, 2012, 10:02 am
#64
Join Date: Mar 2002
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That's all you've got? Remember its PM-UA system that isn't functioning not SHARES, the CO systems is sound.
I guess everyone can sit in their prized E+ seat listening to channel 9 reminiscing about the ugly UA tulip that has gone away and all the outrageous e-certs they collected over the years for defective reading lights, not receiving preferred entree choice, defaced Hemisphere magazines, etc.
I guess everyone can sit in their prized E+ seat listening to channel 9 reminiscing about the ugly UA tulip that has gone away and all the outrageous e-certs they collected over the years for defective reading lights, not receiving preferred entree choice, defaced Hemisphere magazines, etc.
The buck needs to stop with Smisek. I for one wouldn't complain about the merger if it actually made things better for the consumer. At this point, I get happy when the flight is on time.
Prior to Smisek- #1 on time... and now? Anyone?
Nov 15, 2012, 10:21 am
#65
Join Date: Feb 2008
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It's not as though they need the computing power of a mainframe to calculate these numbers. I'll bet they could write a "backup" application that they could pull up on a windows PC to manually run the numbers in a minute or two instead of twenty. I don't even think it would be very time consuming to develop. (Big asterisk: I could probably develop it in a couple days, but I'm sure anything to do with flight operations has to go through a multitude of certifications). Still - the ability to keep operations moving in the event of a Unimatic failure would surely save more money in a single outage such as today's than it would cost to develop and certify.
Nov 15, 2012, 10:27 am
#66
Join Date: Feb 2008
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“Third quarter sales of paid premium upgrade, which is our product allowing customers to purchase access to the BusinessFirst or global first cabins, increased about 50% versus 2011. SHARES provides us a much more powerful platform to dynamically price Economy Plus, paid premium upgrade and other ancillary products.”
James E. Compton - Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President 10/25/12 3Q call.
“None of those systems, however, has the high profile of our passenger service system, our SHARES system, which powers not only everything that the customer does, but our website and our loyalty program as well, which is a massive system, nor does any of those require the level of retraining that the SHARES system did. So my judgment, we're over the really tough hurdle of IT”
Jeff Smisek – 10/25/12 3Q call.
James E. Compton - Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President 10/25/12 3Q call.
“None of those systems, however, has the high profile of our passenger service system, our SHARES system, which powers not only everything that the customer does, but our website and our loyalty program as well, which is a massive system, nor does any of those require the level of retraining that the SHARES system did. So my judgment, we're over the really tough hurdle of IT”
Jeff Smisek – 10/25/12 3Q call.
Nov 15, 2012, 10:28 am
#67
Join Date: May 2006
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Posts: 263
I also missed this nonsense by just one day, flying from ORD to BOS last nite.
Interestingly, a headline story at boston.com today takes the time to talk about UAL's problems with the SHARES conversion. Great publicity for UAL, doncha think?
http://www.boston.com/travel/destina...XDJ/story.html
Interestingly, a headline story at boston.com today takes the time to talk about UAL's problems with the SHARES conversion. Great publicity for UAL, doncha think?
http://www.boston.com/travel/destina...XDJ/story.html
Nov 15, 2012, 10:32 am
#68
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Nov 15, 2012, 10:50 am
#70
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Not exactly true. Aircraft take off every day without this kind of advanced system, especially in Africa & some former Soviet countries. The problem is they tend to not be able to stay in the air more then a minute or so before crashing down to earth. But they can certainly at least get the nose gear off the runway 
Nov 15, 2012, 10:59 am
#71
Join Date: May 2005
Location: SJC/BWI
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Posts: 45
Travel waiver up now
Travel waiver is in effect now on united.com
https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/travel/news/Pages/travelnotices.aspx
Not that front-page of united.com is responding right now
https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/travel/news/Pages/travelnotices.aspx
Not that front-page of united.com is responding right now
Nov 15, 2012, 11:33 am
#72
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: USA
Programs: MYOB
Posts: 1,292
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Busin...ssons-Learned/
2007 Pre-merger Unimatic issue
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/p...utage/161604/1
2009 Pre merger Unimatic issue. Actually caused by an IT worker, but Unimatic none the less. Hey, Unimatic may have "been running fine", but if if SHARES is running fine, and it's a network routing issue...goose/gander. you get the idea.
http://jumpseatnews.com/uni/nws/details.asp?id=1637
2009 Pre merger issue - Unimatic. Crews could not access Unimatic from AOL. Likely AOL's fault, but.....then again. Unimatic was essentially a boat anchor for the people trying to access it while it was unavailable.
Just sayin.
Last edited by xzh445; Nov 15, 2012 at 11:53 am
Nov 15, 2012, 11:34 am
#73
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 4,187
Yet another example of the poor implementation of the merger and how things have gone down hill. Really miss the gold old days of CO (as no doubt other miss the good old days of UA). Hopefully the operations merger will be completed soon so we don't have this mish-mash of computer systems. In the mean time, I'm still flying mostly sCO flights and UAX flights and having not nearly as many problems as some.
Nov 15, 2012, 11:49 am
#74
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: USA
Programs: MYOB
Posts: 1,292
Yet another example of the poor implementation of the merger and how things have gone down hill. Really miss the gold old days of CO (as no doubt other miss the good old days of UA). Hopefully the operations merger will be completed soon so we don't have this mish-mash of computer systems. In the mean time, I'm still flying mostly sCO flights and UAX flights and having not nearly as many problems as some.
Nov 15, 2012, 11:55 am
#75
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Posts: 5,825
"By accident" of course...