Is There Any Ato In The Us System That Has A Truly

[tadjr]

700- While I appreciate your sentiments, please do us few agents left a favor and USE the fn machine. We have enough problems to deal with from people who cant use the machine or have checkin failure to deal with people who refuse to on principle. It ISNT going to help us with the current management and thought process in place. Now you use the agent and we get a nasty note for not having 70% checkins on kiosks. We cant win and it really ties up the lines.
Of course, if there is no one in the "the machine didnt work" line, I dont think many would have a problem helping, although it does count against the numbers.
Spin- Give me a buzz sometime and come down and work the kiosks for a couple days with me. Better yet, sounds like SNH could show you some more fun. We've managed to finally get a decent system going on checkins (now that we have ropes back up in front of the counter, those passenger fights are nasty). What the company says, what is supposed to happen and what actually transpires at the kiosk/counter are two completely different things. I'm thrilled that someone has not had a problem with the kiosks, and I have to admit they are better than they have been in the past, but they still have MAJOR issues at times.
And just because you HAVE a credit card, doesnt mean the machine is going to work right and there is no way to screw up the process. I've had people put in their card and get someone elses reservation pop up for checkin. Oops. Didnt know about that little glitch?

 

[tadjr]

If so, please fess up and tell me/us how some semblance of a decent checking in process is accomplished cuz it ain't happening in my 'hood'. Seriously tho, I don't expect any one to say their station works efficently, but thought I'd try. Share your horror stories here if you like.

[post="277751"][/post]​

The airport has required new signage for all carriers so we got to get rid of the old stuff that was outdated or didnt say what it needed to so that helped. We have 2 primary lines for checkin. We now have a "First/Preferred/Ticketing" line and a "Self Checkin" Line. Problem is what to do with those that dont really fit into either. We usually put them in the ticketing line, although at times (especially during reroute situations) we've set up a special "deal" line carved out of the regular kiosk queue line or borrowed ropes from another carrier and set up a special "flight canx" line.
In a perfect world we should have 3 lines (oh the horror, I can hear CCY screaming now!) with 1 subline. First/Preferred, Ticketing/Deal line, and self checkin (with a subline for checkin failures). You would need a queue agent at the front of the line (DL has this at my city and doesnt let ANYONE in the checkin line unless they have to be there). The "regular" agents who are not working kiosks should take First/Preferred first and ticketing/deals when there is no one in the other line. There should be a dedicated agent for the kiosk deal line as well. Problem is sometimes the deals take quite a while, especially when trying to get a codeshare ticket or reissue done and it backs up quite a bit, especially if the 2 agents working F/P/T BOTH get deals at the same time. We usually try not to have both agents at F/P/T get deals going at the same time if at all possible, but that always doesnt happen since "are you just checking in?" seems to be a hard question to answer at times.
Our manager didnt want the ropes up in front of the counter because CCY said no, however, after having fights between pax over getting to use a kiosk and having people fall over bags spread out everywhere, we convinced him that it NEEDED to be done and since we could see first hand that the CCY way WASNT working (hmm, imagine that) that we were going to have continual problems if things werent changed. (cant wait for CCY to call and have the ropes taken down now).
SNH, do the agents take the bags at the counter or do they have to go somewhere for TSA to take them? This used to be a big problem with crisscrossing bottlenecks, but we take them at the counter now. We also try to have a couple agents (soon to be CAR agents) in front of the counter to keep the line moving otherwise someone "waits" to be called to the next available kiosk and it doesnt move.
We have a BIG problem with elderly people who 1) dont like technology, 2) cant SEE anything, 3) dont know who they are or where they're going. We usually just do the machines for them and dont even try to explain since it would take sooooooo long to do it and they still wouldnt remember coming home.
On the other hand, we usually force (yes force) everyone else to use them. We try to be as helpful as possible and explain that they need to learn because eventually they WILL have to do it themselves and we wont be here to help them. That goes over real big, but you have to joke around with them about using the machines quite a bit because most people are terrified of using them. They think they need to know how to use a computer instead of using a "TOUCH SCREEN" that requires them to read and follow instructions. There is a big difference, but many dont seem to realize there is a difference and they dont want to use "the computer". :unsure:

 

[bookmdano]

The airline kiosks are nothing like the "pump your own gas machine", I present 1 car and 1 credit card for payment, and they vaguely resemble ATM's. If I have one deposit or withdrawal the ATM and/or kiosks are easy to use. But If I've booked myself and my sister on flt 123 on Thurs. using my freq. flyer points and I booked my dad on the same flt using his rtfc and I booked my two children on the same flt paying for one child with my cc and the other child using my dad's cc. We are all on the same flight going and except for my sister, we will be returning together.....How Many Seperate Reservations Would I Have To Book?






Answer?????









5


None of these could have been booked on the same reservation. When using a kiosk....if all passengers are on the same itinerary going and returning and payment is all the same (either: 1 person's freq. flyer points....or 1 person's credit card....or 1 person's vouchers). If you try to mix and match you might want to go straight to the agent at the counter. P.S. If you book 5 different reservations on line and do not specifically indicate your seat number during the booking process, the computer will have no idea that there are multiple persons traveling together and will not seat you together.

 

[Severed-N-Happy]

SNH, do the agents take the bags at the counter or do they have to go somewhere for TSA to take them?

[post="277900"][/post]​

TSA is a 10-30 second walk around the back of the queue ropes, depending on which of a dozen spread out kiosk/chk-in positions you are at. So YES there is a lot of crisscrossing of inbound to kiosk and outbound to TSA pax with bags, and people are literally falling all over each other when it is busy, which is often. Did I mention we also have skycaps who all day long bring cartloads of bags in for pax who they cannot check in and have no choice but to dump them in the limited space we have near the counter while putting the pax they were trying to help in line, clogging the area up until they are chkd in and on their way to TSA??

We do have a line queue agent, but depending on who is working it, they are either 1-good at it(rarely)..or 2-overly anxious to throw people on the kiosk even before the previous pax has finished or before qualifying whether they can even use the kiosk, causing obvious potential mayhem, or 3-they are so pizz poor slow that kiosks go unattended for long pregnant pauses, allowing people to "sneak in" from the sidelines while those who have been in line scream at the kiosk agents asking why the kiosks arent being used to their full capacity, or screaming as to why cust svc agts are doing the bag tagging and helping multiple cycles of pax who should not need cust svc help as they were pulled out of line to STRICTLY use the kiosk while they themselves are waiting to resolve a ticketing or flight issue, umnr, standby, etc etc.
It's a mess, a joke, totally unprofessional, and another in a list of reasons USAIRWAYS is the scourge of the industry. And no one cares to do, or attempt to change, anything about it. I have made suggestions, all have fallen on deaf ears.

 

[qwerty]

I refuse to use a kiosk, I will not support the outsourcing of more jobs to technology or any other source.

[post="277798"][/post]​

700 - How did you get up to DC for all those union meetings? 727's are awfully hard to come by in the US, and by your reasoning you'd never fly on a ship with only 2 flight crew up front....,

 

[El Gato]

Do you pump your own gasoline or use an ATM?

[post="277896"][/post]​

Betcha he listens to music on 8-track tapes too!

 

[PHL]

700 - as usual, you stand firmly behind labor - no matter if it's inefficient. God bless you.

But, help me understand your logic better......

I've witnessed Kiosk lines and talked to a lot of fellow frequent travelers. We LOVE them. And, since we are the collective group that contributes a significant amount of revenue to the airline *and* can avoid the ticket lines, you should love us too. Without baggage, most of us just avoid them all together and print the boarding pass online at home.

Is that wrong? Is it OUR fault that jobs are lost to technology and automation? Isn't that what computers have done, in general, over the last 50 years? Hasn't this country become richer and more prosperous as a whole as a result of the vast productivity improvements gained, in part, from technology advances? How far do you believe technology should go to improve efficiency? Where would you say "stop" in your company?

Speaking of this, what about online boarding passes? If you have no luggage to check, would you just print your ticket at home online or would you take the extra time to arrive at the airport, wait in a long, snaking check-in line just to speak to a tired, beaten agent who just wants to get the passengers processed. Now you show up to make his/her day better, but in reality, you've gummed up the works when you don't have to be there.

How about the post office - do you still wait in line for stamps or use a stamp machine? Do you print postage online at home and just drop your package in the mailbox?

Mmmm, what about a car wash - do you go to through the wash, or pay people to do it by hand?

How about your car - do you buy a car if up to 75% of it was manufactured by robots....in America? Or, if such a car existed in the US, would you buy a car that was made by hand - even if it cost $75K instead of $20K?

Do you see what's happening here? You gotta' get off the 'technology ruined my job' platform and adapt, improvise and overcome. Reality is real - it doesn't have to be fair.

 

[diogenes]

Yes, isn't it intriguing the amount of wealth created by technology in the past few decades?

And somehow, a fair share of that wealth did not fall into the hands of the folks who lost their jobs.

I am certainly no Luddite. On the other hand, I am no fan of the 1920's, either.

In the face of the wealth this nation has created, I don't think affordable education and health care, wage insurance, and some assistance in retraining those who lost their jobs to technology is too much to ask for.

After all, we need to get furloughees back to paying taxes, since corporations aren't going to pay them, and according to the President Himself, the wealthy are going to finagle their way out of them.

http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm



http://www.fightingbob.com/article.cfm?articleID=260

 

[PHL]

Actually, those earning under $50K gross have a proportionate number of ways to reduce their federal tax bill that the super wealthy have. Libraries are free, and books are cheap. It's not hard to learn personal finance - no matter how much or little one earns.

 

[osunut]

700 - Typical response from someone who has no idea about what they are there for. PHL stated it perfectly, they are loved by the people who want them, the frequent fliers. Then again I should understand the stubborn stance from a workgroup that doesn't know you use bluejuice in a Airbus. Another story, another time.

Here is the HP side for the most part, all personal opinion of course. The kiosks acually do pretty well for the most part. They will check in, collect excess bag fees, collect APIS info, change seats and will even check in groups of up to 15 pax. They did not reduce staffing by being implimented as many uneducated people think. In fact it eases the job of the ticket agents. They are out front helping the custsomers side by side rather than behind a counter. Ever see The Fifth Element? You would want someone behind bulletproof glass helping you out like a 7-11? Anyway the system for HP is like in the 60%, which is incredible overall.

They are not as bad as everyone thinks and I would rather use them than stand in a line, so you go ahead and stand in line while we don't and get cleared before you. But then again we can check in online, does US have that for non-revs? I would think so.

Yea, your going to have those problems that need an agent, but everyone is going to have those. So get off the high horse and use the thing. Like they are going to ever go away, move on to something that matters.

blah!

 

[diogenes]

Yeah, I reduced mine quite a bit this year.

I got furloughed.

Me and Jack Welch, living the high life.

 

[tadjr]

Here is the HP side for the most part, all personal opinion of course. They will check in, collect excess bag fees, collect APIS info, change seats and will even check in groups of up to 15 pax. Anyway the system for HP is like in the 60%, which is incredible overall.

They are not as bad as everyone thinks and I would rather use them than stand in a line, so you go ahead and stand in line while we don't and get cleared before you. But then again we can check in online, does US have that for non-revs? I would think so.

[post="277994"][/post]​

The kiosks at US are better than they were and the kiosk department will listen to complaints/problems since they really want to get them to work better, but it takes a while to get the kinks worked out of them. US kiosk for the most part is basic checkin with a couple extra perks thrown in. No excess collection done on baggage, no checking in groups of more than 9. They do now do standby confirmed collections and flight changes within 4 hours of flight time. They can collect passport info. Most you have to type the info in (3 of 11 in station that are working have the scanner installed) and its a long process with no way to correct the info once its entered if done incorrectly. It says sorry, see an agent even if all you need to do is change a date or passport number. I had this happen the other day on a family of 5 and its very frustrating, especially after doing everything else on the kiosk and just needing to make 1982 a 1992! Argh! This is not customer friendly and it has been sent to kiosk to see if it can be corrected. If you are not using a passport for documentation you cant use the machine (this will be a moot point in a couple of years thanks to the govt). The machine does not verify info or that the proper documents are in the customers possession. You can put any number or date in the machine and it will take. An agent somewhere is still SUPPOSED to verify info, but since we dont know what the customer typed into the machine it seems kind of pointless. I can say yes he had a passport, but I still dont know what they entered without looking it up myself which seems stupid to have to recheck especially since the company says I dont need to check for them to check in. If thats the case then the agent needs to do it from the start. I'm waiting for the day someone gets called in because the passenger put in a funky passport country/number and we get a fine. Well, I checked his passport and he had one, what else do you want without rechecking everyone again by hand which seems like a waste of time/effort.
They now have the system updated to show if assistance HAS been prerequested, but you cant add that you need a wchr, have an unaccompanied or an infant.
We still have a large number of credit cards that dont work (even if Spin says otherwise). The magnetic stripe is bad or has corrupted info or the name is a little different, etc. Its better on the search now than it has been and there are a lot fewer "see an agent" checkin failures, but it still happens a lot. It would be easier to just take that info out and use name checkin for the most part. You could keep it active, just dont promote it as a way to checkin for new users. Many people still see the "Insert Dividend Miles card or Credit Card" and stop the checkin since they dont have the card that paid for the ticket. They dont see the "Or Type Information" button way down at the bottom, but this has been brought to their attention and they are looking at changing it. You need a big button at the top that says "Touch to enter Name/Flight information for checkin" or something along those lines.
US uses date of hire for pass riding so it doesnt matter if we check in before or after someone with more/less time. And no, dont assume US has anything advanced like home check in. We just got a couple months ago the ability to list and check flight loads at home. Lets not push them too much, ok? It would be nice to be able to do home check in and print out a bp so you dont have to stop by the counter to check in, but I wont hold my breath (until the merger maybe).

Also for Spin again, had a couple today I was trying to help checkin and I TYPED IN THEIR NAME and flight number and it brought up a completely different record. The couple wasnt even booked today come to find out, yet the computer thought they needed to be the Wackenhuts when they were the Nesbitts booked yesterday. Dont even ask how that one happened because I dont have a clue, but it did. So much for our advanced technology. :down:

Overall the US kiosk has been vastly improved over the past year and they are working to make checkin easier. Its just hard to try to assist the customer in the experience ie "force them to use the kiosk" and have something stupid cause the failure. They look at you like why do you want me to use this when it says I have to see you anyway. You just wasted my time, thanks. You also feel like an idiot when this happens since you're promoting our great and easy checkin machine.

SNH- Not too much you can do about the mass confusion with the TSA problem except hope they can get it where the agents take the bags. We have our inline scanners installed finally so this alleviated a lot of our problems. The TSA people were right at the end of our kiosk counters and the other carriers were using them as well which made for a real jam at the counter (and they were right near the entrance to the building which made it a 3 time cross required. Maybe a suggestion that you have a "bag waiting area" with 1 person in the party stay with the bags AWAY from the kiosks and have a runner agent to get the bag tags from the counter and tag the bags out of the way. It would be a pain to do this, but might alleviate some of the congestion right at the counter. We still have a problem with large groups sprawled out in front of the counter blocking other machines while 1 person is checking in, but the queue agent can try to herd the group together and get anyone who isnt checking in out of the way ie grandma and grandpa who are just hanging with the baby stroller, etc.

 

[Flying Titan]

Tad -
Thanks for your perspective on this. Like 700 and several others I know, I go out of my way not to use the kiosks. As a customer, I prefer human interaction - you know, customer service. I don't mean to belittle the work of the ticketing agents with the following comparisons because they are much more skilled, but here goes...

I don't ever use self-serve check-outs at the supermarket because I don't think I should have to scan, bag and work the register. That's hardly what I would call progress. At the mall, I still hand my credit card to check-out clerks. Aren't they supposed to at least LOOK at the signature on the back to see if it's my card? At the bank, I prefer human tellers. Isn't this type of interaction supposed to be part of customer service? What's wrong with expecting good service? Typically, telling customers (in any business) to just do it themselves is not what I would consider good service.

Having said that, it's good to know that management is, in fact, punishing those who are working to give that service if enough customers don't use the kiosks. I may re-think my strategy when flying as I do not want to cause problems for the frontline professionals who set UAIR apart from the competition. BTW, I don't want to seem anti-technology. From time-to-time I do print my BP at home because I see that as a useful time saving convenience and, thus, another form of good customer service.

 

[Severed-N-Happy]

Tadjr's list of kiosko fiascos is quite thorough, however there are more:
1-Two people with exact same 1st name, only one comes up the other requires agent handling. There should be an easy override or correction for this..where is it?
2-Bag tags are processed ok, but the kiosk screen says WE CANNOT COMPLETE CHECK IN SEE AGENT..all you have to do is go thru the cycle one or sometimes 2 more times and you get the BP's. Usually this happens if pax doesnt select a seat assignment but can occur other times as well. Very time consuming!
3-A seemingly successful CHANGE FLIGHT/Standby process asks for credit card for 25 fee/pax swipes card/kiosk responds UNABLE/ SEE AGENT/find out the res is changed in SABRE but fee not collected..by trial and error you can go back in under CHECK IN, put in the new flt nbr, and kiosk imediately asks for credit card for 25 change fee..kind of circuitous and a bit stupid, but it seems to work. Again time consuming and sloppy programming!
4-Various and sundry transactions where you go all the way to the last step, things seem to be going OK, and then it fails. Sometimes its a SECURITY WATCH list issue, but other times there is no logical reason for it to fail.
5- Sched changes and vol changes where the res agt doesn't reissue the ETKT will fail almost 100percent. This will likely keep occuring more frequently as the talent and expertise in this department decreases with the outsourcings.
6-Paper tkts on 037 ticket stock rarely work as do etkts issued by United where they retain control of the ticket. There is no excuse for this baloney.

Overall the percentage of one stop service chkin with no failure or extended assistance needed, in my guesstimate, is below 50 percent.
Very sad indeed~~~~~~