Originally Posted by
weezl
It seems that now at least part of the problem with the system frustrating pax is that there is more transparency then before. To us PMUA people who never saw R inventory and didn't discuss ToDs on this forum very much, the system looks wishy washy, when all along the PMUA 96 (100) hour cutoff for upgrades was for premium seats that PMUA "felt" like doling out back then. Do I have this right, or was PMUA really more liberal and in the past just released whatever F and C seats were not purchased at the 96 (100)/72/24 hour marks to deserving elites?
This doesn't sound right. UA had full transparency into the system. They still revenue managed the space (i.e., didn't release everything to upgrade).
However, as for transparency, the UA technology worked, and everyone had visibility into the mechanics of it. This is what we're lacking with the CO system.
On PMUA, If there was NF space (or NC space if 3-cabin), and you were inside your window, you cleared, period. If you didn't, there was something wrong, you call in, they figured it out, and you ended the call with an upgraded seat assignment. If you did not flip from Pending to Waitlisted at your window, you could call and remedy that. With the CO system, none of this can be remedied.
If you were eligible for upgrade on UA, you showed as Pending (outside the window, but eligible), Waitlisted (inside the window, but not yet cleared), or Confirmed (cleared). If your reservation had a problem, you would not show. With the CO system, you see none of this.
It's this level of visibility into the mechanics that are missing with the CO systems, combined with a high degree of failures and errors (e.g., an out of sync ticket causes the whole flight to become toast, and make it appear that the system isn't working), combined with a workforce that is instructed not to manually upgrade to fix isssues. All these combined work to create the anxiety around missing upgrades.