Dear US Airways Customers,

[Non Rev]

Dear US Airways Customers,

This past weekend, as many of you know, we reached a milestone in our integration. Specifically, we merged the two reservation systems of the former America West Airlines and US Airways onto one platform. While this was a significant achievement and required extraordinary preparation work among all departments, especially our Information Technology team, the conversion has not been without its share of challenges.

Some of our customers, in particular those located at our hubs in Charlotte and Philadelphia, have experienced longer than normal wait times. This is because the check-in kiosks at some isolated airports did not convert over smoothly and even tonight, are not yet fully functioning. Worse still, some customers had their travel plans disrupted as a result, and this is not the kind of service we want to provide. Even though the disruption impacted a relatively small number of people, the fact is, if one person has a bad experience on our airline as a result of our conversion to one system, it is one too many.

With that, and on behalf of our 37,000 employees, we apologize for the inconvenience any of our customers may have experienced as a result of this weekend’s migration. Although the best-laid plans can sometimes go awry, our team is working very hard to get the kiosks back up and functioning. In the meantime, we have dispatched additional teams of employees to our hubs where the kiosk issues continue and our Information Technology team continues to work around the clock to troubleshoot the sporadic issues we continue to experience with the airport kiosks.

This letter would not be complete if I didn’t also note that this issue has also impacted our frontline employees, who are doing a fantastic job of learning a new system while dealing with the absence of automated check-in kiosks at the above-mentioned airports. Our hats are off to them and our entire company is really proud of the way all of the various departments across US Airways have pulled together to get our customers where they need to go, with their bags, and on-time.

We appreciate your patience and will continue to update you with our progress if the issue is not identified and resolved quickly, and wait times once again escalate. Based on our progress today, I don’t anticipate this being the case.

Again, our apologies and on behalf of the 37,000 employees of US Airways, thank you for your continued business.
Doug Parker
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
US Airways

Scott Kirby
President
US Airways

 

[Dog Wonder]

Dear US Airways Customers,

Some of our customers, in particular those located at our hubs in Charlotte and Philadelphia, have experienced longer than normal wait times. This is because the check-in kiosks at some isolated airports did not convert over smoothly and even tonight, are not yet fully functioning. Worse still, some customers had their travel plans disrupted as a result, and this is not the kind of service we want to provide. Even though the disruption impacted a relatively small number of people, the fact is, if one person has a bad experience on our airline as a result of our conversion to one system, it is one too many.

the sporadic issues we continue to experience with the airport kiosks.

This letter would not be complete if I didn’t also note that this issue has also impacted our frontline employees, who are doing a fantastic job of learning a new system while dealing with the absence of automated check-in kiosks at the above-mentioned airports. Our hats are off to them and our entire company is really proud of the way all of the various departments across US Airways have pulled together to get our customers where they need to go, with their bags, and on-time.

Chugalug Parker
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
US Airways

Scott Kirby
President
US Airways

PHL and CLT are isolated stations? No offense to BGM and EWN but those would be isolated stations.

Sporadic outages would be limited not most of the time.

Thanks for applauding the front line employees they deserve it.

What happened to the 'resounding success' of the integration?

 

[ClueByFour]

They forgot PIT and BOS and LAS.

 

[BoeingBoy]

They forgot PIT and BOS and LAS.

And at least several other outstations, although apparently the loss of the kiosks didn't cause as big a problem as at the hubs.

Jim

 

[N965VJ]

Anybody want to borrow my old PACER cheat sheet?

 

[ClueByFour]

And at least several other outstations, although apparently the loss of the kiosks didn't cause as big a problem as at the hubs.

Jim

I'd imagine there comes a point where the "normal" staffing at the outstations could do everything by hand in an acceptable period of time by hand, whereas at a hub it's demonstrably impossible to run without the kiosks at the current staffing model.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Exactly....

Jim

 

[btson]

The fact of the matter is simply the IT staff wasn't up to challenge and failed miserably. To blame the Airline, or better yet, to blame the Executives is childish. Especially after they have admitted things didn’t go as planned and apologized!

I’ve worked on projects like this and can say they aren’t easy. Where US Airway’s IT went wrong was simply not enough planning and testing. What should have happened was several middle of the night tests for both kiosks and computer systems. That would have prevented this inconvenience.

Bob, once again, you have shown your disloyalty to your supposed Airline of Choice.

Why don’t you take your bad attitude elsewhere?

When you make the comments you do, you do nothing more than offend those employees you supposedly care for. What gives?

Just admit it. You HATE US Air, it’s Executives, and It’s employees. If you are that damned unhappy GO THE F*** AWAY. I’m sure there is some airline out there that need the likes of YOU.

How is it that you average 5.9 posts per day with 93% of them in the US Airways forum, yet you hate them so?

 

[SKY HIGH]

Dear US Airways Customers,
Again, our apologies and on behalf of the 37,000 employees of US Airways, thank you for your continued business.
Doug Parker
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
US Airways

Scott Kirby
President
US Airways

sky high states: HUH?.......shouldnt that say, SORRY for putting our customers and EMPLOYEES through this mess because we're so cheap????

only stating opinions

 

[Prince of PAWOBs]

Why did Parker and Kirby apologize "on behalf of the 37,000 employees"?

We didn't screw this up.

 

[jimntx]

The fact of the matter is simply the IT staff wasn't up to challenge and failed miserably. To blame the Airline, or better yet, to blame the Executives is childish. Especially after they have admitted things didn’t go as planned and apologized!

As someone who spent over 20 years in the IT field, starting as a programmer and ending as an independent consultant in Systems Planning and Strategic Planning, I have to jump in here.

First off, every company has the IT department it deserves. If the executives in a company do not demand excellence from the IT department (or any other department for that matter), they won't get it.

Obviously, this IT department does not have a rigorous Application Development and Testing protocol. This is usually the result of the executives of the company being unwilling to pay for the time and money that this type of development requires. The IT area is one in which you can take to the bank the old saying, "you get what you pay for."

If my experience is worth anything, I can just about bet you that the people in the IT department who wrote the code are also the ones given the responsibility of final testing of the code--a fatal mistake. I never met a programmer--me included--who could see the errors in code he/she wrote.

Testing and final approval HAS to be done by those who will use that code and who will have to intervene if the code fails--the agents and the supervisors on the front line. I bet if the ticket counter agents had been testing that kiosk code, the bugs would have been found.

But, see. Taking agents away from their duties to do software testing costs money--not something that the new LCC executives appear willing to do.

 

[autofixer]

The front line employees KNEW this was going to happen. ALPA's MEC Chairman predicted it on a Code-A-Phone message on Friday. The point being, why did management not see the problems? Last week, I asked agents at CLT, PHL and DCA how the switch would go and they all said it was going to be a disaster (I wanted to know, being a commuter; thus I drove the 4 hours to work rather than commute this week...shooo!). Why did management not ask these simple questions? Because they could not run my little $1 million shop if their lives depended on it. They are simply corporate raiders, skim as much cash from the "cash cow" as you can and then move to the beach.

Another major problem with the new program, is it is not getting weight and balance numbers out to the airplane. This is causing major delays off of the gate (as of Sunday Night). So there are two MAJOR operational problems that went unnoticed by the highest paid management in the industry.

Note: CNBC's "Skwak Box" is reporting this morning, the problems persist.

 

[700UW]

As of this morning according to US there are 318 Kiosks down system-wide including CLT.

They are trying to load new software in CLT this morning and still have no idea of when they will be up and working.

 

[lgwcalling]

As someone who spent over 20 years in the IT field, starting as a programmer and ending as an independent consultant in Systems Planning and Strategic Planning, I have to jump in here.

First off, every company has the IT department it deserves. If the executives in a company do not demand excellence from the IT department (or any other department for that matter), they won't get it.

Obviously, this IT department does not have a rigorous Application Development and Testing protocol. This is usually the result of the executives of the company being unwilling to pay for the time and money that this type of development requires. The IT area is one in which you can take to the bank the old saying, "you get what you pay for."

If my experience is worth anything, I can just about bet you that the people in the IT department who wrote the code are also the ones given the responsibility of final testing of the code--a fatal mistake. I never met a programmer--me included--who could see the errors in code he/she wrote.

Testing and final approval HAS to be done by those who will use that code and who will have to intervene if the code fails--the agents and the supervisors on the front line. I bet if the ticket counter agents had been testing that kiosk code, the bugs would have been found.

But, see. Taking agents away from their duties to do software testing costs money--not something that the new LCC executives appear willing to do.

EXCELLENT POST!!!

 

[mbmbbost]

Why did Parker and Kirby apologize "on behalf of the 37,000 employees"?

We didn't screw this up.

Struck me the same way. They should've been apologizing TO the 37,000 employees and customers who were stressed and inconvenienced. And done so on behalf of executives and management that manage the business ineptly.