At least 3 types of people here on AC FT, in terms of the Amadeus move.

Group 1: Uh oh, I've got AC flights booked on Nov 18 or 19. Should I run and hide? Cancel and book elsewhere?

Group 2: Oooooh, exciting. I'll book some Nov 18 or 19 flights and for fun, see what happens. Maybe get some codes and coupons if stuff breaks.

Group 3: Just added popcorn to the grocery list. Plan on watching from the comfort of home.

:D

This makes me wonder if AC choose to migrate now instead of putting it off till next year given the EU 261 style rules being introduced next month with the air passenger bill of rights:

I would imagine it would be hard to argue that an IT meltdown was outside their control or safety related.

If you choose the skunk (others call it the racoon or simply PD) realize that their route network is exceedingly thin and if you get IRROPs there chances are you will be spending some qwality time at the airport.

That raises an interesting question to what extent does the move to Amadeus impact StarNet? Will AC still be able to access that system and/or contact the operating carrier of the connecting flights to get that sorted?

A quick glimpse at the *A employee guide offers some ideas:

Here's to hoping AC has a pad of MCOs on D-Day ready to hand out so that IRROP passengers can go to the ticket desks of OALs to get something sorted.

Realistically, I think this will go smoothly. Name one major IT project AC has undertaken in the last 5 years that has been an unmitigated disaster? Sure AC has had minor hiccups such as with leap years but by and large it's been very minor issues all things considered. Meanwhile DL, AA and most notably British Airways have all had IT meltdowns during normal operations!

You forgot Group 4 (which includes me) : This is going to be such a nothing story, it will make on Halloween sound like headline news :p

Safe Travels,

James

Paper MCOs... that will be fun.

At least for US flights AC will be able to 240 pax with scrap paper!

I will be part of group 2 and 3. Flying from ORD on the 18th and there is popcorn right by the AC gates.

My experiences with COUPON REQUIRED have been much much much more challenging than you lead me to believe. The two instances that come to mind:

1. LGA GA+concierge couldn't resolve it, central concierge took an hour, I missed my flight
2. SFO concierge couldn't resolve it, notified YVR, who called me to ask if it had been resolved, and ended up sending a concierge to meet me on arrival with a FIM

I can't even imagine how this would work for a non-SE.

And the first situation there had a ticket that matched the PNR. The second was after a SDC.

OK, I'm going outside 5 years BUT, I'd suggest a major IT project is a "disaster" when it is cancelled prior to ever being made operational. From 2009:

"... Air Canada recorded an impairment charge of $68 million related to previously capitalized costs incurred in the development of a new reservation system.."

I think its going to be highly dependent on the exact person you get.

A 55yo GA with 30 years experience might be able to resolve it, directly, with a few keystrokes. Or issue a new ticket, and not GAF about the paperwork being right when the BSP does its thing. And a $15/hr YYZ concierge who knows how to do exactly the 13 things they were taught, without any understanding of what those even are, would be lost without an hour long phone call to the helpdesk.

OK Boomer. The fact of the matter is, yes the person you get will impact how IRROPs and service recovery is handled. In my (fortunately) limited experience of getting IRROP'd I don't see any correlation between age and experience and how well they handle the IRROP situation. Most recently, I mis-connected at YUL due to ATC issues. Head to customer service and the grey haired lady issued my boarding pass for the following day. When I inquired about hotel and meal voucher given I'm UA *G she in effect told me to pound sand. I then went to MLL and the friendly agent in their mid to late 20s correctly agreed with me that I'm entitled to this duty of care and steered me to ticketing which could actually issue the compensation. I head to ticketing and this lovely lady in her 30s issued me that compensation.

The problem with the concierges and customer service has nothing to do with their age or lack of experience and everything to do with the training program (or lack there of) that
the company has instituted. I'm 31 and probably know more than most people sitting behind the desk when it comes to *A policies because I took the time to read the manual carefully and understand how the policy and procedures work.

And how many passengers were impacted by this IT project? Zero based on what you've said. AC is more conservative (to a fault perhaps) when it comes to rolling out new IT systems and suspect it will be no different with this one. They will certainly have contingencies on hand.


Safe Travels,

James

I'd have to be 20 years older to be a Boomer

I'm too old to say "ok boomer".

And I'm younger than j2simpso.

I will go a couple steps further. IGS has been a disaster for AC that has happened so slowly most everyone misses it. Terrible value, very slow to deploy, buggy, failure prone IT. The only way you could not see it as a disaster is if you don’t think IT and data are mission critical and a core competency for AC. But it is no stretch to image that all those things have had real and opportunity costs greater than the $68m from that one obvious disaster.

I 100% legit stopped reading after "ok boomer".

My suggestion is that the younger ones don't know how to do obscure things, not that they don't want too. We don't have enough information to know if your blue hair had the ability. I'll grant they did not GAF.

In Cow's situation, the Concierge wanted to help, and was on the phone for an hour actually helping.

In terms of the daily ops - you shouldn't see any impact at the airport initially. This is because the DCS is not transferring at the same time. DCS can integrate pretty well with any Reservations database and thus it should basically be seamless.

I would expect that there is a shadow in Amadeus already for all RES III bookings - thus the transition will be smooth.

Where you will see real issues is for calling reservations and needing to get anything done that is more than basic. They will have a hard time with changes to itineraries, ticket exchanges, repricing, etc. This will also creat big backup in the call centres and so unless you are SE - expect the call centres to be completely overwhelmed . . because everything will just take longer.

I think I heard that DCS will also move in stages based on location. Some international locations won't change for a few months. Given that DCS can talk to any other DCS - this is not such a big deal either.

Every passenger that has had to wait an additional 10 years for a full-blown update of the AC systems to be implemented and has had to suffer through numerous IT faults and clunky, frequently-down (for a 24/7 airline) systems that don't play well with each other and often their airline partners systems.

Yes, AC has had few total IT disasters but they have effectively created many call-centre disasters by the lack of online capabilities to handle what many of their competitors can do online. The failure to manage and implement IT modernization isn't conservatism (i.e. appropriate risk management) but is merely applying bandages to an every increasingly complex and aging monster.