Will there be an end soon to PSS integration problems?
 

Sitting at my gate at IAD waiting for my connection, I just heard a new to me PA message: Any available Shares support please call extension 3456 immediately. How long ago was the system switch? And shouldn't the agent know the phone number for support?
Long lines at customer service while the airport itself is not really crowded and the weather is beautiful.
This comes after an unbelievable chaos at my journey's starting point this AM. 3 agents working the desks, can't handle the amount of people trying to check in. One agent proclaims for all to hear: "passengers are showing up at the airport too early. It is 10:00 and their flights are at 13:00. And now they are asking questions about connections. They are creating chaos for us!"
After boarding my flight to IAD, we end up with passengers from another IAD flight and ORD passengers on board. They got it sorted but how will this work when airports get busy for the summer?
I am really losing confidence in UAL as an airline.
On the bright side, I got upgraded for the leg to Denver!

I no longer have any confidence that a UA booking will operate as planned. I know the employees are ready to snap but the entire system has degenerated intolerably. To answer your question, I don't think it's ever going to end.

Don't hold your breath - I've witnessed agents all over the country (in UA and CO hubs as well as non-hubs) struggle with the system. My issues today with losing my confirmed seat when a standby was mishandled was a new one for me... but still an issue with system design, familiarity, and training.

It's hard for us lowly customers to get it right. Show up early but not too early. Show up late... :rolleyes:

Never?

Don't fly United and it can end right now. You won't even notice a thing as you will be living your life thinking about other (hopefully more pleasant) things.

When is this going to end?
 

I have 2 trips booked next month, will take me to platinum. They have been booked for months, before it all started falling apart. Few future trips will be on UA. *A to get my 1k and try a few airlines. I am tired that these problems are not ending.

I disagree.

A week ago Saturday I was flying IAD-ORD-NRT-SIN. Arriving at the gate at IAD, I was greeted with a windshield replacement to the aircraft on our IAD-ORD flight. I went to the desk to ask the CSR about what options I might have, and she replied that she was already working on rerouting all international passengers on that flight. Within a few minutes, she gave me the docs I would need to get on board the ANA flight to NRT (the UA flight was already full), and arranged to have my bags rerouted as well. Maybe the CSR had to manipulate the keyboard more than she used to have to, but I didn't notice a SHARES-induced delay.

I got to NRT on time, boarded my original 881 flight to SIN - enjoyed a great crew, great flight, excellent food, and much to my relief, my luggage was there to greet me at Changi.

So, two days before my return flight, I check my reservation, and see that all my seat assignments are gone. Called the 1K desk, and while they couldn't explain what happened, they reassigned me with efficiency.

Got to the airport early Friday in Singapore. Checked in for 116 to HKG without a hitch and went to the gate. After going through security at the gate, one of my colleagues announces that he just got an e-mail alert via Tripit informing him that our flight would be delayed seven hours - apparently a crew rest issue. I immediately assumed the worst, but within 15 minutes I was called to the desk and sent to transfer desk with five others (I assume they were all 1k or GS) where we were quickly booked on 882 SIN-NRT-ORD, and much to my surprise and enjoyment, my upgrades all held.

Had two more great flights - great food (while i'm not impressed with the domestic catering, the international catering is MUCH better than it used to be on pmUA), great crew, and got my baggage in Chicago.

Here is what I take out of this experience. The one thing about the merger that worried me is that the 1K level of service would disappear, but in my recent experience, the front line UA employees I've encountered still want to provide that kind of service. Yes, the IT solution still needs work, but all things considered, it isn't as bad as it was a few months ago, and hopefully, it will get better.

Will there be an end soon to PSS integration problems?
 

I had an interesting experience. Friday night trans US flight. Got out of a meeting early enough to catch the direct flight home. I did not know that my original flight had a 1.5 hr delay which would leave me stranded over night. I called in from the cab to see if they could move me to the earlier direct flight - my Regional had cleared some days before and I wanted to know if I could transfer that. The first agent was somewhere overseas. He had trouble identifying that a direct flight existed (?) and then after liked up the time and flight number for him he said that he did not know how to transfer a regional. I thanked him for his time, hung up and called back. The second agent (US based) was all over it. She immediately voiced that there was a problem with my flight (something the other guy never noticed) and that she would look for better options. Within 5 mins she had transferred my
Regional over the the direct flight and I was
ready to go.

So yes, I say that some things are slowly improving or that are buried from days of yore. There are still some issues that I find unacceptable such as over paying more for an upgrade (esp international) that does not clear ( that is just robbery), random seat changes, and confirmed segments that go missing on airline partners.

There is enough to worry about on a trip without having to add in whether United will fail to deliver as stated.

To answer your question, those are over. Anything related to the integration has probably been cleared up. Lost segments, upgrades in the wrong class, having to reprint a BP because you checked in on an old system, etc. is all behind us now.

The "chaos" you describe is the new normal. The CO system was never intended to be used for such a large carrier with such an extensive route network. And as a result, it does not have the same level of refinement. I'm sure it will get better over time as they refine business processes and the system, but the amount of time required to perform transactions and lack of scalability can be mind-boggling if you're used to PMUA's processes and ability to handle things quickly.

So an agent called over the PA for a SHARES help person. So what? If they'd called the Helpdesk over the phone you wouldn't have heard that. Calling the Helpdesk to handle in 30 minutes what a PMUA agent with Fastair used to do in 2 minutes is normal these days.

You are viewing UA through the narrow prism of the 1K service experience, which may well be improving -- I don't know. For the other 99.7% of customers, I stand by my view.

In the last 9 days you have had two straight UA longhauls hit with huge operational snafus -- remarkable in itself really -- and though you continued on your way with reasonable dispatch thanks to status, what was the fate of the other 250-to-300 passengers?

In the last fortnight I've seen huge, seething rebook lines at DCA, ORD and SEA moving at a glacial pace. The airline must fix its core service experience or it will attract only 1Ks, the desperate, and the unwary.

Maybe the better question would be "When will FastSHARES be here?" .

Apologist ;) :D

None of the existing airline reservation systems - including Apollo - where ever intended to be used for such a large carrier with such an extensive route network.

I''m with you--one thing I've noticed that does still seem broken is that when you get rerouted on the outbound flights, you lose your seats (and you get offloaded) on the return flights. I think there is something tricky about using the system to reroute you, where the system doesn't recognize that you reached your outbound destination....then they cancel the rest of your flights. The first couple of times this happened, it took the GS phone agents about 30 minutes of messing around to straighten it out. My traveling companion straitened it out with a 3 minute phone call last week.

Moral of the story is that if you are rerouted on the outbound, make sure to call UA and check the status of your return flights before going to the airport (or before your seats are no longer available if you have crowded return flights).

At IAD, all of the people with international connections were taken care of. At SIN, they weren't. That said, when you have a flight that goes 7 hours late because of crew rest issues, and there are limited seats on the other flights leaving that non-hub location, I suspect the same thing would have happened pre merger. The real problem there was United not taking action to rebook the SIN-HKG passengers earlier, as I'm sure they knew the outbound flight wasn't going out as scheduled long before we checked in at Changi.

Yes, the lines at customer service are still too long - but they aren't as long as they were two months ago. Which is the point I made earlier - things do appear to be getting better, even if they aren't where they need to be.