It's been a month since United Airlines cut over to Continental's passenger services system, and hold times to speak with airline agents are longer than normal, a handful of ancillary offerings remain unavailable for sale through the carrier's merged website and some other technical glitches persist.
United contends the situation is getting better all the time, with hold times for customer service calls greatly reduced and frequent resolution of system quirks.
Among ongoing issues, some elite upgrades this week were not processing properly and automated check-in was not available for some passengers due to un-synced records.
In the immediate wake of the cutover, reports of problems ranged from lost passenger name records and missing itineraries to disrupted access for MileagePlus accounts, and, of course, those long hold times for human assistance.
“The vast majority of our systems are functioning as planned," a United spokesman said this week.
Results of "the single largest technology conversion in aviation history," as United called it, have been mixed. While some frequent flyers and media outlets have zeroed in on ongoing service disruptions and the long call times to resolve them, United has suggested a silent majority of passengers were not inconvenienced.
United's aircraft operations quickly normalized after a brief spike in delays immediately after the cutover, and the carrier contends that system issues were isolated, rather than widespread.
United's senior vice president of sales, Dave Hilfman, last month said only a small percentage of "millions" of PNRs went out of sync after the transition.
"In the month since the conversion," a spokesman said this week, "more than 10,000,000 customers have traveled with us and we have had good operational reliability. We have already solved many of the technical issues affecting some of our customers and are working to rapidly solve the remaining ones."
"Have we had glitches?" CEO Jeff Smisek asked during a J.P. Morgan conference on March 13. "Of course. In a project of that size you have to. But we're knocking those down one by one. We've had high call volumes, no question about that, but those are really driven by some of the underlying issues we've had," such as difficulty with "the conversion of MileagePlus balances" and a glitch that landed some passengers in the incorrect boarding zone.
"Those drive call volumes," Smisek said. "As we fix those technology glitches, we bring down the call times."
As recently as last week, the Associated Press reported hold times of more than an hour. By Monday, however, the average wait time to speak with a United agent had come down to 10 minutes, a spokesman said. That's longer than pre-cutover times, but short enough for the carrier to remove from its website an alert warning of “extraordinarily high call volumes" and elevated wait times.
"We have several hundred additional agents in our contact centers, and have significantly reduced the time that customers wait for agent assistance," said the United spokesman. "We are working hard to reduce wait times further as we roll out system updates that provide customers with more information.”
Smisek said the passenger services system project is at "the heart of the airline for the customers" and "the heart of the airline for the operations."
The merged system ultimately will enable United to sell new optional services, enhance reporting for corporate clients and better tailor sales to individuals.
Optional services not an option
Still envisioning a variety of new ancillary products and services following the cutover, United has taken a step back before moving forward.
For example, the carrier has suspended sales on its website of Premier Line, which expedites check-in, security and boarding, though the benefit for elite flyers remains available for free. Meanwhile, the carrier no longer is selling day passes to airport lounges on its website, though they remain for sale at the airport.
Sales of those two offerings should return to the carrier's website in the second half of this year, the United spokesman said, noting that they were slated for suspension even before the cutover to Continental's Shares system, provided by HP.
The transition to Shares also disrupted the sale of Economy Plus through global distribution channels and the redemption through the carrier's website of its prepaid PassPlus program. Those have yet to return.
Yet, other ancillary offerings have been harmonized in the wake of the passenger services system cutover.
For example, FareLock, which previously enabled Continental customers for a fee to hold a fare and itinerary for up to a week, has been adopted by United and is available for sale on its website.
Source: The Beat