writetorich

I call US air to make a reservation . This is like a comedy of errors. I gave what They held it for 24 hours. When I called to Pay it was like a comedy of errors However when I wanted to pay for the ticket much less upgrade it was like send a man to the moon. I wasted three hours and us air was unable to sell me a Ticket

This was due solely to the fact that it was an American West operated flight.
This has to be the worst merger in terms of operations.

they have "East coast" operations and "West Coast" operations.

one can not access the others records????????????????

Why make reservations on flights that can't be serviced???????????

This has got to be one the most ill concieved mergers from a operational perspective.

But at least the whore investment bankers earned their fees. So that's the important thing!

sts603

I'm sorry other than stating that the airline has an Eastern and Western half (something we all know) this post isn't very informative.

MSY-MSP

Actually, I think it is somewhat informative. In particular, i have run into a very similar situation with US. I booked a ticket with US on the US website, from MSP-LAX with a connection in PHX. Obviously, all of the flights are on HP, but when I called the number on the website, the agent was unable to help me do simple things such as find my record (when I gave him the record locator number, and flight numbers). I eventually gave him my ticket number, which I already had from the website. BTW All I was trying to do was add my UAMP number to the record. It was then the agent realized that it was an HP ticket and he couldn't do anything about it. I was transfered to an HP agent who was able to add the number.

What issues I have with this is that if I call the number listed on the US webpage for reservations I should get sent to an agent that can handle the issues. I could not find, easily, a number that would get me to HP instead of US. The average consumer doesn't know that the two are not the same despite the merger in name.

US should make it much clearer that there are still some technical issues with the merger that means that an US ticket/reservation is not necessarily a US ticket/reservation that can be handled by a US agent. Also they should provide an easier acess to HP if one finds out their ticket is HP and not US.

Miami_Flyer

Regardless, this does not make the merger "ill conceived" or a colossal failure. I just had a hard time following time following the OP's grammar.

warbo

Two large airlines merging is never a simple process, and no-one should ever pretend that it is. As it stands, US and HP are separate carriers and will be until their operating certificates are merged, which is a process beyond either airline's control.

As a res agent, it's perfectly simple to transfer a passenger with an HP booking over to HP, who can service their request. This stuff happens with a big merger.. and it's not a big problem. I don't get all the hissing and flapping. It's a big job, let's just get on with it. There's no reason for passengers to be unduly affected. It will probably take the best part of a year to merge 1) the operating certificates and 2) the reservations systems. In the meantime we are working around it, and since the merger I haver not come across a single merger-related issue that's not quick and simple to fix.

warbo

US and HP are different airlines, and they have different reservations systems. This does not prevent a merger taking place, and there are well-executed 'workarounds' in place to minimise disruption.

US East and West not having access to each other's systems is not a big obstacle to the merger, and in my experience has not generally inconvenienced passengers. If an agent can't service your booking, they will put you through to someone who can.

How can the merger be ill-conceived if has resulted in a profit making company when so many US carriers are struggling in bankruptcy? Maybe your problem was with ill-trained outsourced employees, but it has little to do with the merger per se.

debbieb

I just got home from a PHX/PIT flight. In PHX, there was a sign to go to a certain counter for flights to PHL, PIT & CLT. I go to that counter, I go to the kiosk, it can't find my reservation. So I finally get ahold of an agent and they tell me I have to go down to the next counter since my reservation was America West. This is the second time this month I got a runaround in PHX because of the 2 separate airlines. Earlier this month, I could not get my connecting boarding pass in SNA because I was going from an America West to USAir flight. When I got to PHX, I had to go to 3 different gate agents to find someone who could print my USAir boarding pass.

CLTFlyer

Form my recent experience, I'm beginning to think that the reservations folks may be able to access the systems of the other - because the agent was telling me that she was looking at the US West system and the East system while trying to fix my reservation due to flight number changes and a few other things (I dared to book a reservation with travel on both East and West which usually gives everyone a headache). So, the transition may be working a bit better than we all seem to think.

Of course, I can't access my reservation online now, but so long as I still have my upgrade and exit row seats otherwise, I can live with that.