Originally Posted by
notquiteaff
I am not actually blaming the individuals here -- UA simply doesn't seem to realize that training their people appropriately saves them money. And probably the IT systems their agents use are even worse than .bomb. Just count the number of keystrokes it takes them to get anything done. How much profit did they make off of my $200 ticket?
Suffice it to say that the IT systems were designed in the 60's and 70's. However, they do manage to stay up 99.99% of the time (which is quite a feat)!!
That being said, I believe this illustrates the obsolete business model of the legacy airlines. It is nearly impossible to train agents on ALL the different instruments/vouchers/etc. that passengers manage to bring in. This needs to be vastly simplified.
BTW, the ticket by mail agents deal more frequently with the various types of instruments. Also, they are in a much lower stress environment and can easily look up the rules without having a live passenger staring at them.