alaskan9974

I had two domestic reservations booked, 1 individual with a cash ticket and 3 traveling with miles. I booked it in August for travel this summer and after making the reservations I asked that they be linked.

Fast forward to today, I got an email noting a schedule change, one reservation has completely different flights then the second, outbound and inbound. I call customer service and I ask them to put us back on the same flights as the kids, who are all under 6. I double check the agents work afterwards, and to my surprise, she arranged the seating so that we would be sitting next to each other

We would be sitting next to each other if we were on the same aircraft. Going to the same destination. Lol. Called up again and got someone stateside who couldn't believe what the previous agent did, and corrected it.

kenn0223

Reservations cannot be "linked". It is impossible given UA's (and most other airlines') reservation system. The best that can be done is that a note is placed in each reservation referencing the other. This note is only human readable so when automated systems manipulate reservations (which is what happens during irregular operations (IRROPS)) they treat the reservations independently. The only true way to be linked to other travelers is to share a single PNR (reservation).

It sounds like there was a schedule change and the rebooking system addresses the reservations independent of one another which is to be expected since they were separate reservations.

Agents make mistakes, its good that you checked on-line and good that UA was able to help you get it fixed to your liking.

In short, if you want to be on the same reservation as others you should make a single reservation else risk being treated as independent travelers during IRROPS.

Lightman7

Despite technology today, UA has no way of "Linking" reservations. Two separate PNRs will always be two separate PNRs (unless they get split into more). UA can put notes on the reservation, but if the computer automatically rebooks due to changes, they won't have any effect. Your best bet is to constantly monitor the PNRs to make sure they stay the way you want them.

drewguy

bolding my revision. I have a hard time believing that it would be difficult to design a system that could link reservations for these purposes.

Implementing such a system as an overlay to the legacy one in place is a challenge, but not the design itself.

mahasamatman

Design cannot exist in a vacuum. Unless you have intimate experience with all of United's front-end and back-end systems, I don't see how you can make such a blanket statement. The design could well be extremely difficult given the constraints of the existing technology.

mgcsinc

The biggest problem here is that, probably not wanting to deal with indignant customers, agents will tell people they're "linking" reservations, even though no such facility exists, and they're actually just typing some meaningless-to-the-automated-systems text into a comments field.

Boo_Radley

+1. I absolutely love ripping on United, but no dice here.

drewguy

Hence my point about a legacy system.

mahasamatman

Except that you claimed that the legacy aspects only affect implementation. As a software architect, I can assure you that this is incorrect.

drewguy

Could you design a ground-up system that would link PNRs more effectively than UA's current system?

mahasamatman

Easily. Once you take away some constraints, the design would be simple.

TerryK

Yes, after spending a few hundred billions or maybe more.

Airlines reservation systems are linked to all via GDS for interline bookings. You cannot change architecture of UA system without affecting others. Hence, all airlines still use the same system architecture which was developed in the 70s.@:-) Any change in system architecture must be implemented across all airlines.

Of course, UA can design a new system with new architecture for UA only flights. However, customers booked in this new system will not be able to interline with other airlines. Not even in the case of irregular operation.

Bottom line: currenly, there is no such a thing as linked PNR (reservations) for any legacy airlines.

Note: I don't know much about LCC system. It is possible that LCC systems are designed differently since they don't interline.

mahasamatman

There are already multple GDS (at least five I can think of right off the bat), so there are already compatibility layers in existence, and any given system only has to speak to one GDS. As long as a new system is written against the proper interfaces, it just shouldn't be that difficult a problem. But airlines are only concerned with short-term profits, so they won't invest in something that will vastly improve their lives a few years down the line.

(I am assuming that for the given task, linking PNRs, it would only work for all-UA bookings. If you want it to work for everyone, then yes, that would be a monumental task.)

TerryK

Interface is not an issue, as you said, the issue how data (PNR) is created and stored.

If UA system can link PNRs, there needs a way to pass linked PNR information to other GDS(es) and other GDS needs to be able to parse and store linked PNRs. Don't forget a UA PNR can be passed to multiple GDS(es) with multiple interline segments which generate multiple PNRs for each UA PNR which in turn all need to linked. Those PNRs from GDS will be passed to operating airlines and generate another layer of PNRs which all need to be linked.

For example, if have BA segment on UA Linked PNRs, the PNRs need to be passed from SHARES/PARS to Amedeus and create linked PNRs in Amadeus. If that BA flight is actually BA codeshare operated by AA, then the linked PNRs need to be passed to Sabre to create linked Sabre PNRs for AA operation.

mahasamatman

Yes, as I said above (you may have replied while I was still editing), my solution would only apply to all-UA PNRs.

To solve this globally could be huge depending on how the PNR is currently defined, though I think that even with that, there are ways to encode the proper information in the existing structures so that systems that understood it could take advantage of it, while others would ignore it. I've spent the last few years working on 30-year-old software, so I'm quite familiar with these types of extension mechanisms and I think it could be done without too much pain.