Originally Posted by
AbyssalLoris
<snip>
About needing a human - that is an interesting question. Why shouldn't this be do-able online? How is it any different than doing the original fare search while booking. In this case, I was trying to push my return out by a day or two. So, wouldn't AA's search engine just look for corresponding flight options and substitute my return for them, populating the new fare (+ change fee) in each case?
Anyway it is a moot point. I called reservations, but I have to maintain that this is an awful way to do things. Looking up the exact same flight on a different day took the agent several minutes. What then? Do you execute an elaborate search on the phone, looking for all combinations and layovers and dates one after the other? Can't imagine we do this even today.
Here’s the deal: The AA PSS was designed in the 1950s, based on a US Air Force system to track incoming bombers called Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) (I worked on SAGE a bit). An IBM exec seated by AA CEO C. R. Smith sold him on the mission similarity in 1953. The result was the Semi-Automatic usiness Research Environment (SABRE), trotted out in 1960, now Sabre.
Everything added and modified has added tonwhat today is very dated and klugey software. When AA told us eVip (SWU) we’re going to be shown in our accounts, it took something like 18 months to accomplish! (It turned out to be a good thing, as our eVip validity was extended from one year to the current “remainder of this status year plus the following one”.)
Prior to bankruptcy, AA had an MOU with Hewlett Packard to design an entirely new system called Jetstream. That was cancelled and the parties settled on an agreement in 2012. After the takeover, Doug Parker selected Sabre as the PSS (over available systems like Amadeus, etc.)
Short of it: AA, and of course we, are stuck with an antique. First out doesn’t mean the best or most capable after other competing systems are built. It kind of stinks, but that’s where we are. (I’ve been flying AA, through the good and the bad, since the 1940s. I’ve seen much of this occur.) Think Slow Loris.
