Is SHARES a better system now vs years ago?
 

Hi Folks:

As an oringial UA 1K (pre merger), I remember the days of 2011 / 2012 post merger when systems were a mess.

One of the biggest things that us "UA-folk" had to get used to post merger was the use of CO's "SHARES" system versus UA's Apollo system.

I remember the decision to go with SHARES vs Apollo. Which, at the time, was a "green screen" interface versus Apollo's more GUI system. But, we were told, SHARES was chosen because it was cheaper to operate and more flexible to make changes / upgrades vs Apollo.

Those first few years were rough. Constant issues with tickets being "out of sync" in Shares. Limited ability to change or do things on the website, etc.

There were complaints every day on this board, for years, about SHARES, it's limitations, and how long it took agents to complete simple tasks.

Fast forward to today...and I can't remember the last time I've heard a complaint about the system. Nor can I remember a time my ticket was "out of sync." It seems they've fixed this. In addition, UA has arguably the best mobile app out there with "real-time" updates to seatmaps, status, etc. Way better than Amadeus systems like LH, LX, or Air Canada.

What are your thoughts? Are you now happy with SHARES, or do you think it still has issues and miss the old Apollo?

I don’t know what system UA currently uses, but Monday morning at ATL check-in counter, it took the agent over 30 minutes of typing to issue new BPs with SBY BPs, when ATL-IAH was cancelled due to weather. I couldn’t believe it took so long! 😳

I came from the CO (passenger) side so SHARES is what I came from and at an ex-CO hub my worst memories were from the first couple months after integration where things were just plain weird (miles/flights appearing and disappearing from MP) and pm-UA agents fumbling -- I remember one ORD supervisor telling me "You know SHARES? Do you want to just do it?" while pushing the keyboard in my direction during an IROPS situation -- but after agents got comfortable and whatever that MP integration issue was getting straightened out I can't say I've see any issues of significance, and agents are certainly more comfortable 10 years later than when they were thrown in the deep end at 60 MPH

But the architecture of SHARES (or rather the entire bundle of technology that UA uses with SHARES at the center) has lent itself to enhancement -- not always customer-positive enhancement but I digress -- and then the Aero overlay made things easier for agents (even some 20+ year CO agents I've chatted with prefer Aero for transactions because it automates a lot of the individual steps and seems to cover 90%+ of the situations that are encountered -- there's a new overlay in progress called Jet that I'm hearing mixed opinions of and to be honest it's not completely clear to me if the intent is to completely replace Aero or just further streamline the most frequently used functions in Aero.

Like 100+ keystrokes to print a boarding pass…

Only if the agent is making a ton of typos or creating a new PNR to ticket from scratch

Two options depending on if the passenger is already checked in or not (assuming the flight is on today's calendar day -- add 6 more keystrokes [e,g, /26AUG ] if not, and assuming departing from the same airport as the agent -- add more [e.g LAX-] if not [this is from a doc I found in the early '00s but I doubt it has changed meaningfully in decades]

1. If the passenger is not checked in: 6-1234/SMITH/JOHN B0 (check passenger John Smith in to flight 1234 with 0 bags on today's date from 'this' airport) or 6-1234/27AUG/ORD-SMITH/JOHN B1 with 1 bag tomorrow from ORD.
2. If the passenger is checked in and just needs a BP reprinted: 6-BF1234/SMITH/JOHN

I don't see many keystrokes that would be avoided with a GUI (replace '6-' with a click and maybe a drop down for airport and flight number -- though TBH I'd prefer to type those myself)

Agents for the most part do not use SHARES directly (older more experience agents may) and new agents are not trained on SHARES. Agents use the AERO overlay and as mentioned there is a newer overlay Jet,

SHARES was like MS-DOS -- powerful and hard to learn. But most anything could be done. Following the merger, its was a struggle for pmUA agents to learn and it felt like a set back to many.

I'm from the USA but live overseas and I go back and forth a few times a year, often applying PlusPoints to my reservations. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with SHARES or not, but I'd say >50% of my international tickets with PlusPoints end up 'out-of-sync' at some point due to a schedule change or something else. Happens pretty often. At least when I call the 1K line I don't have to wait long for somebody to fix it.

I think the out-of-sync errors are almost all on intl flights with PP... I don't recall having an out-of-sync error on a domestic ticket for many years.

UA seems to be so far ahead of its domestic competition as it relates to the reservation system and technology, especially in IRROPS handling. It's a far cry from the integration debacle a decade ago, and for all the flak that SMI/J and the HOU-Crew got, that single strategic decision was absolutely the right one.

While I fully agree it was a struggle for most/many... I had a relationship with a retired UA station manager who went back to work for one of the UX ground handling operators.... he said the original post merger SHARES roll out was easy to many of those who worked for UA in the 80's/90's, as many of the commands that were seared into his memory from that era were commonly used. This late 60's friend could knock out 3-4 check ins to his younger coworkers 1 :D

I think a great deal of the UA/CO merger and integration can be characterized by, "had the right idea, but completely botched the execution." The IT integration is a great example. Looking back now, a decade+ on, it was arguably the right move, but it was like taking 10 steps back just to start moving forward. The learning curve for agents, the loss of many familiar shortcuts/features and the time to carry out basic tasks was frustrating for users of a mature, well-developed system in United's Apollo/FastAir/FastRes interface, and even those accustomed to the CO way lost some functions and ease of use in the transition to the merged SHARES/EZRes.

Post-merger United also dropped the ball when it abandoned development of FastSHARES (later Aero) before the rollout and brought everyone back to stone-age native SHARES on the IT cutover date. I believe it ultimately cost United business in the short and intermediate term. It might have been a different story if the integration was held off until FastAir-style overlay could be developed for ease of use, but so much of management's compensation was tied to hitting merger integration dates that missing targets was not an option.

With the right people and leadership in place, the flexibility of the platform has actually enabled UA to innovate among US carriers, and I think United's IT (including self-service functionality) is better than the competition. The consensus is that United's basically-unrestricted license to SHARES allows it to do more in-house development than United could have with its Apollo license. Philosophically, this is very much "UA of old" thinking ("let's build a custom system in-house rather than buy an off-the-shelf product").

I believe the purported advantage of Jet is that it is mobile-optimized. United wants to de-emphasize the podium and give agents more functionality on iPads/iPhones to serve as "roving CSRs". One can also look at that as a way to reduce/optimize airport staffing demands. You can see this in action at some of the newer holdroom designs at ORD, where the podium is clearly designed for a single agent position.

I think that's exactly what happened -- someone set an integration date and it was a "hit this come hell or high water" and the result was the the high water came, the two airlines were smashed together and pmCO folks had a leaky outboard, pmUA folks were given a barely lake-worthy canoe with half a paddle and passengers were sharing life vests. Had the IT integration been more ready day 1 I think a lot of the bad blood in the short term that still pops up today could have been avoided (and remember that frustration was with dozens if not hundreds of pmCO folks TDYed to pmUA heavy stations/hubs to help.. I think the lower levels of management tried to head off the worst of the meltdowns.)

That would make sense... Though TBH the new ORD hold rooms confuse me greatly and make agents look like they're waiting to show me a table (particularly the podiums that are located at the edge of the hold room that seem to be infrequently staffed) but it is interesting to look at the evolution. Remember when agents actually had to have somewhere to collect and account for the paper ticket coupons in addition to the BPs? A lot of those models clearly no longer work well in an eTicket and mobile BP world...

I feel dumb.
What is SHARES and how does it affect customers?

SHARES is an acronym for SHared Airline REservation System (because back in the day it started as Eastern's SystemOne then Continental and Eastern became cousins and...) and is essentially the 65-year-old heart of almost everything passenger facing for the airline. It's where your reservations ultimately live, it's what generates ticket numbers, it produces (or allows to be produced) boarding passes, it tracks flight status and seat assignments, etc., etc. It's hard to think of something on the customer side that SHARES doesn't interact with or influence in some way.

The way SHARES is architected, UA's license for SHARES (after Continental sold it to EDS which became part of HP) is structured a lot of functionality isn't actually in the core of SHARES but bolted on using interfaces and more modern computing strategies, e.g. MileagePlus (which is the OnePass core at it's heart) isn't 'part of' SHARES but is very much dependent on it for ticketing/coupon status, etc., etc.

Most people think of SHARES as the "green screen" terminal interface that agents had to use originally and still will drop back to either out of comfort or for an odd situation. Most agent transactions now are handled by Aero or Jet which are overlays to SHARES.

I believe that early versions of MS Windows (e.g., 3.0) were graphical overlays on MS-DOS. I remember having to have DOS installed, and Windows 3.0 was started by typing "Win" at a command prompt. Ahh, the good old days...

They've definitely improved the integration of the bolt-ons to the core system to reduce errors over the last decade, but I'm still having ticket sync issues ~monthly.

I don't think the decision to use SHARES vs Apollo was consequential to the UA web/app experience; the web/app experience relative to competitors is due to an incredible amount of investment UA has put into those interfaces.