Another horrible day in the NE

[Dont call me Shirley]

Well another stormy day in the NE today, lotsa ground stops and delays. And, of course, reroutes, reroutes, reroutes. How I miss W:ECXCH:INVOL!

The "new and improved" reroute keypad still requires way too much input. And, of course, getting OAL space to confirm is still hit and miss.

(sigh) I could go into more details but right now it's time for an adult beverage! And also time for South Park!

 

[tadjr]

And, of course, getting OAL space to confirm is still hit and miss.

Amen brother, and unfortunately tonight it wasnt just LH to FRA, ATH or Chenni, it was DL to JFK and LGA that wouldnt confirm. After 20 mins on hold with DL rez I finally got thru to someone with a very clear English accent (in India) unfortunately she didnt have a clue what I was asking her to do. She even told me I had to call USAirways to book the reservation I wanted (on DL). Sigh. After another 10 mins of hold and telling her to forget everything I just said, just book me a seat TPA-LGA tomorrow, she finally got it. Meanwhile, the reroutes kept growing as we played hunt and seek again.
:down: It's going to be one h*ll of a summer if you miss your international connection.

 

[kao]

Amen brother, and unfortunately tonight it wasnt just LH to FRA, ATH or Chenni, it was DL to JFK and LGA that wouldnt confirm. After 20 mins on hold with DL rez I finally got thru to someone with a very clear English accent (in India) unfortunately she didnt have a clue what I was asking her to do. She even told me I had to call USAirways to book the reservation I wanted (on DL). Sigh. After another 10 mins of hold and telling her to forget everything I just said, just book me a seat TPA-LGA tomorrow, she finally got it. Meanwhile, the reroutes kept growing as we played hunt and seek again.
:down: It's going to be one h*ll of a summer if you miss your international connection.

when you can not get to confirm---have you tried contrl I f4? Change the seg status? Change it first to kk and then do it again to hk or just shift I and see if it hk's...I know pain in the arse...we could not get IB to assist us either...everything we ask for is falling on deaf ears---this is important stuff....so I sold it myself and I am praying all is well..the help desk helped for the first reissue but the 2nd time was very snooty....do not need this crap for what we make....I have had agents state that until the company gets it fixed, they are not doing it....3 hours with 1 pax is not good....

 

[tadjr]

the help desk helped for the first reissue but the 2nd time was very snooty....3 hours with 1 pax is not good....

The agent next to me on Tues had the help desk hang up on him (They didnt know how to do what he needed done and I guess they were just done talking about it--- now you know why its called the (no)help desk.)
3 hours with one pax is not good, but hey, we saved some money on the computer system didnt we? (multiplied systemwide every day)

 

[wench1]

Time to OUTSOURCE THE NO HELP DEPT!

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

The agent next to me on Tues had the help desk hang up on him (

The help desk ain't what it used to be. Actually, most of the people desk are great, but I sometimes sense some frustration from them.

 

[expressedndepressed]

My last call to the HELPLESS DESK referred my to INTL RATES, who also couldn't help me, but referred me back to the H-D. With a little pencil-whipping on the paper coupons to get them into Europe, then slap a FIM on the back for the new inter-line conx to their final destination. Away my customers left with smiles and a Thank-you(to me)..

 

[phillyphlyer]

Just another day in paradise in PHL Intl....Wed t'storms and 1-3 hour delays on all tranatl flt...also spent 1 hour trying to do inf tkt..the web site says inf charge 0.00...now we all know the rules have not changed with QIK...you still need a tkt for inf but the pax dont know this..so they show up in Phl and we tell them $200.00 for a tkt and they flip out...then we spend an hour trying to issue it and they end up REAL happy...we finally gave up on e-tkt and HAND WROTE A 2 FLT TKT...remember them??? When was the last time you actually hand wrote a tkt??? I didnt even knwo we still had them in stock!!!

Thurs left-over misconnex from t'storms and ALL flt overbooked with at least 10 Rev SB on the list..I thought AWA never overbooked flts...then where did those extra 11 pax come from on my FCO flt...try to get volunteers...no takers...also broken seats on a/c so now we're down another couple seats..try to change seats????of course not possible and just 2 agts working flt...end result 25 min delay


I try not to let it get to me but if this is how this summer is going to be we will need a psychiatrist on site to dole out meds just to keep agts working.....

Just another day in paradise.......

 

[as the prop turns]

NEVER EVER EVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH ANY TICKETING ISSUES WITH SABRE. WHY DON'T THESE IDIOTS JUST ADMIT THEY MADE A MISTAKE..BRING BACK SABRE AND WE WOULD HAVE NONE OF THESE ISSUES TO DEAL WITH. IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO BRING THE SYSTEM BACK. WE WOULD HAVE A SMOOTH OPERATION (RELATIVLEY) IF THEY WOULD JUST TURN THE DAMN SWITCH BACK ON!!

 

[crusher]

The IT Dept (better known as the IDIOT TEAM) are of the delusion that they can make shares into a Sabre like clone. Sorry , but they don't have the talent or the intellect to make this happen, and even if they could ,how many years will it take? Bury the Pig and BRING BACK SABRE

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

My last call to the HELPLESS DESK referred my to INTL RATES, who also couldn't help me, but referred me back to the H-D. With a little pencil-whipping on the paper coupons to get them into Europe, then slap a FIM on the back for the new inter-line conx to their final destination. Away my customers left with smiles and a Thank-you(to me)..

The other day, an agent in a Northeastern station spent almost an hour on an international reissue. This was after the customer flew in from DCA where he stated he had spent an hour with an agent trying to get a ticket PHL-ARN ticket reissued. He had to give up in DCA because his flight was boarding. So, after 35 minutes trying to get QIK/SHARES to reissue the ticket, (it was paper ticket and the change was only a date change, not a routing change) with calls to rates and the help desk, the agent was told to do an even exchange and handwrite an SST for the change fee. Then 10 minutes calling the supv back from lunch to unlock the SSTs.

The parting words from the customer (an SK *A gold member) "You are in the Star Alliance?"

So here is a transaction that Sabre could have done in maybe five minutes (even allowing for a call to rates to confirm the add collect). You have the DCA agent spending an hour, plus the time for the people he called at help desk and rate. Then a replay at the outstation. How much did those staff hours cost? (not to mention the customer's time).

Tell me again how QIK/SHARES saves money?


Thursday, between the NE meltdown on Wednesday and Friday's ATC LGA delays, I had a chance to spend a few minutes over at CO watching them do some native SHARES stuff. Guess what, it's faster than QIK/SHARES. Fewer keystrokes and no "BUSY BUSY BUSY TIMEOUTS". No, it's not as cool as Sabre, but it sure beats QIK/SHARES. As has been noted before, CO also has a "gooey" overlay of their SHARES. But, in at least one station, hardly anyone uses it.
(Here's an exercise for those around the system. Take a stroll/shuttle bus ride over to CO at you airport. Ask them if they use their GUI overlay or native SHARES. Watch them do some transactions. Report back)

If we are stuck with SHARES (and we are) please, for goodness sake, let us have the choice or QIK/SHARES and native SHARES. CO has that much respect for their frontline people.

 

[Art at ISP]

DCMS,

I was just about to post something about CO when I read your post. I was on CO this week, and our flight from SNA-IAH took a one hour mechanical delay. While this was not a weather related or wide spread delay program, the flight crew was on the PA every 10 minutes, going so far as to say that CO has an automated misconnect system which will automatically rebook people who are likely to misconnect for whatever reason. It seems this system has forward thinking capability--intuition if you will, and works PRO ACTIVELY.

When the possibility of making our connection seemed dim, I called CO's Elite Desk, and was told my colleague and I had already been protected on the first flight in the morning back to LGA (we were on the last departure). The CO agent had all the answers, and acted like she was prepared for my call.

We wound up making our flight with about 3 minutes to spare, but when we got to LGA my colleague was missing one of the two bags which he had checked (he's a new hire and I haven't trained him to carry on only yet). We went to the baggage office, and the young lady behind the counter typed in the check number, and said, "oh yes, we got a message on this one--they said it would miss and would be on the first flight tomorrow--we'll be happy to deliver it, and please accept our apologies."

I have never seen anyone at CO complain about SHARES, but it is a different system--the main difference being that their system WORKS!

I will have more to say about CO crews in another thread........

My BEST to you all......

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

DCMS,


I have never seen anyone at CO complain about SHARES, but it is a different system--the main difference being that their system WORKS!

I will have more to say about CO crews in another thread........

My BEST to you all......

From what I have heard, there are no plans to let frontline US agents have the choice of using native SHARES. :down:
Some of the offices in Tempe, however, do have access to the native system and make use of it. (I guess that is one difference between commoner and court)

 

[Harry Callahan]

As I have said "several" times the other airline I worked at used Shares & imo easier than Sabre although grant you there may be changes. However if I'm betting I would still say it's pretty easy.
PLEASE get rid of this stuff we have now.

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

As I have said "several" times the other airline I worked at used Shares & imo easier than Sabre although grant you there may be changes. However if I'm betting I would still say it's pretty easy.
PLEASE get rid of this stuff we have now.

Maybe the only hope is that US will eventually go with Amadeus, in spite of reports that the decision has been made not to.

Some info about that system:
http://www.amadeus.com/amadeus/x5034.xml



Current Amadeus Altéa Reservation customers include:

• 5 of the 8 Oneworld airlines
• 13 of the 21 Star Alliance airlines
• 3 of the 10 SkyTeam airlines