QIK /SHARES migration

[Non Rev]

I recently flew for the 1st time since QIK. I don't know whether to attribute my experience to QIK or some of our lovely PHL employees.

I was on the west coast trying to go east. I missed my first flight, the agent said if you are trying to go east take any flight with an open seat east and sent me to PHL. I was not listed on anything from PHL. I arrived in PHL to find I had almost 5 hrs until my next nonstop to my city. So I decided to try for a double connection to save me some time. I went to the gate and the agent said if you are not listed I cant help you, go to special service. After being to only person in line w/4 agents working the counter I was called up after about 2 minutes. Again I was told they could not help me call the phone line. It was down and would not list me, I was on hold almost 30 minutes waiting for rez to answer. My flight was about to leave so I ran to the gate. The agent said did she list you? Told her the story. After being chastised and basically being called a liar they put me on the flight. When I arrived in the next city they found no record of me on the flight. They just put me on and sent me on my way. I'm grateful they did but....what if?

The PHL agent at the gate kept asking for my record locator I did not have it as I had no boarding pass from the west coast city. Thats the point she insinuated I was lying?!?! I told here the times for the flight numbers I was listed on, she made it sound like she had to have the record locator.

Can the agents not pull up a flight schedule for departed flights?
Can the agents not list a non rev at the gate?

Thanks

 

[atoguy]

Hey NONREV...departed flights can be pulled from the Availabilty keypad on F10. Also there is an entry called GO SHOW. If a non rev is not listed they just fill this popup out with name, flight, etc. Once filled out and you enter it books, tickets, and checks you in and puts you on standby list. Takes less than a minute to do.

Don't Call Me......That reissue would require that. Revenue standby or anyone if you change Hubs it is a reissue. If it is an INVOL reroute have you ever used the ALT CITY choice for reissue..CTRL E F5? 4 leg bagtag was suppose to be out March. Can't remember what the issue was. As for Qik not being able, if you remember when we 1st got Sabre we got the basic version. It was like 3 years down the road I think before we got the full TIPS back. That is kind of where we are at again. Yes it is frustrating for everyone right now. But I hear a new ticketing package is coming later this year, as well as being able to adjust I believe upto 4legs on the 1 to 2, 2 to 2, etc. As for the CO folks. Same as for a couple stations we still have out there. The native part is not blocked out so they are not forced to use it. Kind of like when we did the Qik/Sabre to help folks learn navigation and people refused to use it.

But to all. If I can answer a question for you send me a personal note and I will get back to you.

 

[InternationalShannon]

As one of the supervisors once told me , this system is designed for someone who wants a cheeseburger to press the button that has a picture of a cheeseburger on it...however, in order for one to be able to navigate this system correctly, you need to know 4 different ways to get to the cheeseburger button incase of the likely event there is a glitch in the system on that keypad.

you need to understand what youre doing in order to know that what you are doing to this customer is the right plan of action. You need to know what the sytem is going to DO after you perform certain entries to the passengers' record once the flight you just rushed them on is closed out....it doesnt stop just because you were able to make your segment pretty.

Until people understand the reissue process,what is actually GOING ON behind the GUI overlay, and what happens with the record consequently, you can tell them push the cheeseburger button over and over and it won't make a damn bit of difference. The string entries teach you WHAT is going ON.

Otherwise you have the magic control F8, F8 and that's all they know. Forget about that conjuncted ticket in there they just wiped out. Too bad, Delta's problem, I got it to work for my segment.... No...no...NO!

Because THEN, Delta gets mad and sends them back to US and US has about 6 agents collectively outside of training that know enough to check the history or search the ETKT to see what happened,
so the passenger is at the mercy of uneducated and employees who are just as frustrated.

So, they write a FIM and write it incorrectly, giving them the whole damn thing, and if the passenger were a little smart, they could write themselves a R/T ticket in J class to the moon on our dime...full fare....

ALL BECAUSE THESE AGENTS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT EXACTLY THEY ARE DOING!! We are teaching them enough to get the passenger out of our faces...we aren't realizing what the downline stations and stranded , confused pax are dealing with.

 

[JetguyCLT]

Your right. People do not know how and when you use Control F8, F8. That is the deamon keypad and will fudge up a etkt in a minute. Hell, I reiussed an etkt to paper the other day and about passed out when it worked. I could not believe it. Maybe I just have a better understanding because I have been to native Shares traning and know whats going on. Seriously though, as much as I hate QIK I have no choice but to use it and be good at it and as much as I miss SABRE, its not coming back.

 

[tadjr]

Its been a year into this. Maybe its time for TRAINING to actually TRAIN or RETRAIN the people who are still having problems. I was lucky enough to use QIK to work West flights for 2 years before actual cutover. I can tell you that the training in my station consisted of 2 days of QIK/SABRE yes SABRE training and 1 day if they were lucky of QIK/SHARES training. Our trainer was actually out of station on deployment during all of the cutover mess so we basically had no one to help teach other than the few West people who came to observe and help at cutover time. Then we have all the new hires from the past two years who went to basic training and that was it. (About 15 of our 50 staff). TRAINING needs to do a course or class to get these people up to speed. Most are so far behind that they just do the basics to get the people gone since they dont know where to start. My favorite line I've heard from a newhire from someone trying to book a ticket at the airport. "No sir, you need to call rez, I'm just here to check you in." Thats the way things are heading here except for a few who actually dont like to look stupid at their job.

 

[jimcfs]

Its been a year into this. Maybe its time for TRAINING to actually TRAIN or RETRAIN the people who are still having problems.

Starbucks did this a little while ago. In fact, they even shut down all their stores for a few hours one evening to "retrain" their baristas.

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

A whole new thread could be devoted to what has become of training for customer service. It aint what it used to be.

 

[wildirishrose]

Hi Gang
I just have to let you know that I know for a fact that they are absolutely working on all the problems. I'm not talking about kicking a few tires, I'm talking about INTENSE testing, testing and retesting. They are reading every single bug that is sent to them. "They" are acturally part of us. I used to think that they were an entity apart too, but now I see they are working hard to fix the glitches. Whats really amazing is these folks acturally WANT it to work for us. They care. The emails between IT, shares,qik, developers, programers, testers is enormous. Meetings are daily, sometime 2 or 3 times a day. They are working on a deadline and believe it or not and they are fervent on meeting that deadline. They take every message you send them and dissect it, then send it to the developer for reprogramming who then sends it back to the testers who try to break it. I won't go on with everything, but its a pressure cooker for these folks and they are amazing at how hard they are working to make the product work for us

 

[crusher]

It doesn't matter how hard they work,how many hours they spend, the underlying problem will always be that the qik/shares system is garbage. No matter what they do it is still simply putting makeup on the pig. We have had a full year of a worthless system that will never be anything more than that. Qik/shares simply sucks! When will Tempe finally open their eyes to what everyone on the front line has seen from the beginning, that qik/shares has been , is and will continue to be a third world res system no what what they try to do. You cannot change a steaming pile of s--t into something sweet smelling by pouring some perfume on it. After a year qik/shares and the IT department that continues to try to defend and update it, is the steaming pile of s--t. No matter what they do to change it , you cannot change it's DNA , it will always be garbage.

 

[OldGuyinPA]

F11..F11..F11

I agree with Crusher...This system is beyond words. Sabre was a superior product.

Doug and the IT department should be fired.

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

Hi Gang
I just have to let you know that I know for a fact that they are absolutely working on all the problems. I'm not talking about kicking a few tires, I'm talking about INTENSE testing, testing and retesting. They are reading every single bug that is sent to them. "....... They care. The emails between IT, shares,qik, developers, programers, testers is enormous. Meetings are daily, sometime 2 or 3 times a day.

Wild, I have no doubt that IT and procedure people are working very hard indeed. But I'm afraid that I am with crusher on this issue. For all their Sisyphean efforts, "fixing" QIK/SHARESis still:

http://www.freakingnews.com/Lipstick-on-a-Pig-Pics-44365.asp


As much as I (and many, many, others) miss Sabre, I know it will not come back. My hope is that evetually the company will accede to the wishes of the Star Alliance and go with Amadeus. Even United is planning on switching from Apollo/Galileo.

Absent that, perhaps the ACS check-in/boarding control system (or another list based one...maybe something like DCS* ) could be name to work in SHARES.


*Not to be confused with DECS. DCS is a check-in and boarding control system used by some carriers. QF is one.

 

[crusher]

We have heard rumor to the effect that AA will be abandoning Sabre in the near future in favor of World Span. Don't know whether it's true or not. We have heard that it is actually superior to Sabre. If that is true it's a great example of a company that is willing to spend the money to give their employees the most up to date tools to do their job unlike the US example of giving their employees the cheapest most out of date systems around (qik/shares), and then trying to make a system designed by idiots work for an International carrier. Just another example of the high cost of cheap.

 

[jimntx]

We have heard rumor to the effect that AA will be abandoning Sabre in the near future in favor of World Span. Don't know whether it's true or not.

I doubt that will happen. AMR may have "sold" Sabre, but the corporation is still a major stockholder in SABRE. It would leave other SABRE customers in the lurch because AMR is also the major customer (by far) for SABRE.

But then, I'm the one who said they would never abandon meal service in coach. We've not only stopped serving meals in coach (other than Buy on board stuff), they've removed the ovens from main cabin galleys on the S80s as a weight reduction move.

 

[REACC1]

It all boils down to accountability. Who was so disinterested in their job to accept the responsibility to program parts of a computer res. system that didn't obviously work with other parts? Who was responsible for implementation? Cut over? The over all design of QIK/Shares?
QIK/Shares doesn't work, IMO, because QIK is flawed. QIK, as I understand, is designed to make the Shares entries for you, so you don't have to remember the "long" entries. (It is supposed to make learning the system "easy", I'm convinced, as to make the learning curve much simpler for new hires, due to high turnover of employees. ie; its cheaper.)I can't count how many times I have made the necessary QIK entries only to have, "Invalid entry" appear on the screen. QIK made the entry. I simply asked it to make an appropriate entry for what I needed at the time.

 

[eolesen]

We have heard rumor to the effect that AA will be abandoning Sabre in the near future in favor of World Span. Don't know whether it's true or not. We have heard that it is actually superior to Sabre.

Supposedly it's Amadeus, not Worldspan. Mexicana and United are planning to move to the same system, and it's already used by Qantas, BA, Air France, South African, and about 100 other international airlines...

Amadeus is highly oriented towards international carriers who comply to the letter with IATA standards.

I doubt that will happen. AMR may have "sold" Sabre, but the corporation is still a major stockholder in SABRE. It would leave other SABRE customers in the lurch because AMR is also the major customer (by far) for SABRE.

Nope. Sabre was taken private last year, and all of the shareholders were bought out by private equity firms for about $4.5B or so. Still, AMR had divested of their remaining shares back in March 2000 by distributing all of their shares in Sabre to AMR stockholders. There might have been a few AMR execs who held onto their Sabre stock, but it was no longer controlled by AMR.