ChiFlyGuy

I heard that the old United system was GUI (Windows) based and now the new United (Old Continental) system is all text based? If that is true, that is ridiculous. It takes all gate and phone agents so much longer to do anything now.

Was this nepotism at his worst, so SMI/J could appease his old colleagues in Houston?

UA-NYC

1. Cost
2. Cost
3. Cost
4. Management team is dominant PMCO, and they know best, so that's the system they chose
5. They own the system (vs. leasing Apollo), so IN THEORY they can put all this development $ into making it more robust. We'll see if that ever comes to fruition.
6. Cost

tryathlete

Thanks Tom for your level-headed approach to things. I've learned that by lowering my expectations during times like these that I am far less stressed. If the upgrades keep coming on Shares with Fastshares, maybe we won't call it SlowShares.

Saving a lot of money but reducing customer service level is a trade off we can all dither about but a few months should tell all.

NickP 1K

There is a lot more on the backend. It was either go to Shares or go to Apollo. There is about as much record data in both legacy systems that either way you crack it if it was handled poorly for moving to Shares it could have been handled as bad going to Apollo (for legacy CO records).

Also Shares has a Gui, called FastShares it's just deploying late, so the command line is NOT the end of the world. Thought here was deploy a KNOWN platform already in use vs the risks of deploying a new platform and a new GUI in one go - THAT would have made things much more worse than it was.

Shares does have a lot more EDI/Electronic Data Interchange points that aren't in Apollo as United had it developed. Meaning some things are more readily available in Shares front end to end customers; things like Upgrade and Standby lists, aircraft origination, backend auto processes like auto checkin for returns, Star Alliance awards and upgrades via web front end. On Apollo and the legacy United.com all these latter items would have been significant development time. NOT defending the issues that have happened; but the benefits of the legacy Continental system outweighed the missing items from United's legacy platform. NOW the transition has had integration issues; once these are ironed out this would be a longer term better platform.

Key here was do you want to own the platform that runs your airline - even if it means pain associated with doing that or do you want to pay consultants, 3rd parties, license fees, etc to another vendor and have no control over the longevity of the platform.

BTW: The command line is still in use by ALOT of airlines who aren't on Gui Frontends, even Southwest up until a few years ago was still on a command line for their entire system (and their system is owned by them like Shares)

ckaught78

I don't see how this is ridiculous. Most marge corporation, especially on the transactional side, have legacy mainframe systems that are all text based. Once learned, they tend to be much faster than any GUI based system.

sxf24

CO did not own SHARES.

The management team you reference doesn't know how to use SHARES and does not have the emotional connection with SHARES that you seem to imply.

neo_781

I'm not sure that is an argument for or against your statements. Don't forget that system prevented Southwest from being able to expand internationally and I think also challenged them with being able to do codeshares.

Darby

The real bottom line is that the CEO is a CO guy who is comfortable with CO systems and policies. He fired the UA CIO nearly a year ago who disagreed AND replaced him with a CO exec. This FUBAR is all on the CO suits. No neutral party would have dumped this SHARES cluster on the "largest airline in the world".

sxf24

That's a function of what capability was originally designed into the system, not the fact that its a mainframe system with command line interface.

TWA Fan 1

Shares is operated by HP, which bought out EDS, which developed it. But there is definitely a "CO version." I'm not sure you can say they "own" it since they continue to pay a hefty sum for HP to operate and maintain it.

As far as the connection to Shares, my impression is that UA NYC was not making reference to an emotional connection, but rather just stating that they are more familiar with it as an operational tool, than with the Apollo system UA used.

UA-NYC

Correct - they "own" their version of SHARES more so than how UA leased Apollo. That's the whole justification for why the kept it, cost, right? Even our own ua1flyer said he's seen the numbers and there's a huge disparity.

Sure - there's no connection whatsoever with the PMCO-dominant leadership team and their ties from anything like SHARES to the coffee produced down the street in Houston.

You sure are the "expert"

NickP 1K

This is unique to CO? If I was in ANY exec position and the CEO comes from the other side in a merger I would be figuring out a way to make that guy see my perspective while I tag along as a team player - otherwise I'm toast. The CO/UA deal is nothing more than M&A's in other lines/companies/industries. If you can't show your new boss any value why is he keeping you.

I think we've beaten a dead horse; talking about it now isn't resolving a thing other than making other FT'ers boil their blood even more. Let's focus on bringing issues to UA to be addressed not pointing fingers over and over again for areas we have NO control over.

NickP 1K

Prove your point? So Southwest chose to NOT expand internationally SOLEY based on their CRS?

sxf24

The executive team of an airline is so far removed from the reservation system that they have no interest in it other than its capability and cost.

Are you saying that cost shouldn't be a consideration when you're evaluating two systems with similar capabilities?

SHARES was not selected because the PMCO members of the leadership team.

haddon90

from my source in UA, originally they were going to switch CO over to UA's system, but apparently, CO's onepass numbers and system weren't able to integrate. so instead, they decided to switch over to shares.

i prefer the pmUA system over this mess.