SparrowHawk
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Website and Res System Down
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SparrowHawk
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I know I mentioned that like 17 times. Thank you Master of the Obvious. SHARES was derived from System One @ EAL and dates back to the early 1960's. It's one of the only reasons Frank Lorenzo acquired EAL. Which is why CO runs SHARES to this very day.
Both SHARES and SABRE are owned and supported by EDS which IIRC is now owned by HP.
There are a couple of Sr, Sr, Sr, agents on the East that can absolutely make SHARES sing! Why becuase they worked at EAL 30 years ago and little has changed.
I'm usually very quick to jump on US for it's IT shortcomings. This time not so quick as the airlines are asking this legacy software to do to much now and what works on paper may not be all that reliable and as we've seen US isn't the only one to have problems
Besides for the initial integration several years ago, what are the high-level recurring issues with SHARES at US?
Dont call me Shirley
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And CO lets users choose between native SHARES and their GUI overlay. Everyone I know at CO uses the native system.
It's a piece of junk. Many more keystrokes and "CTL this F that" entries. There are number of cases, but one good example would be to change seats for a family of three: One entry in Sabre G@123/20DEF@6ABC; a series of entries in QIK/SHARES, changing the seats by each name, not by seat numbers. Not sure offhand how many keystrokes, but a lot.
UAL will be using SHARES after the Co merger; rest assued its verision will be much better and more user friendly that the Yugo version used by US.
The QIK overlay also causes problems.
Did you know that the help desk is nearly four time as big as it was in Sabre days?
I will answer that with a question
Why did HP/US go with QIK/SHARES
Dont call me Shirley
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It's cheaper, supposedly. But one wonders about the cost of longer transcation times, more help desk people, etc. It was also explained that the airline could get out of its EDS Sabre contract during the bankruptcy.
Just a couple off the top of my head and its not just Shares, throw in the kiosks too...
1)Money losing Dividend Miles "fraud" because names arent verified and people are getting free upgrades and bags checked.
2)PNR does not qualify for bag charges error - congrats for some reason QIK is giving you free bags today.
3)Unable to void one paper ticket in multi party pnrs (Zed ticket)- so instead we have to process a refund and do again. Should be able to just void out- even the help desk cant help on this one.
4)Choice seats cash sales- dont make a mistake and make sure you have cash in hand or you're screwed. Or if you're lucky QIK will just give you a Choice Seat for free when other seats are available (outside the 45 minute window).
5)Kiosks upgrading customers for free (had a party of 4 once $400 lost plus bag fees, enjoy!)
6)Kiosk not printing connecting boarding passes for offline connections (In violation of Star Alliance requirements?). Have to F6 to force connections which means extra $ because of the extra boarding passes it prints not to mention agent time wasted.
7)Checking in nonrevs but it wont print a boarding pass to get thru security. Have to do multiple times and force a boarding pass to get them to print. Waste of my time!
8)Busy, Busy, Busy....yep still get this all the time and if you go too fast....they make you stop with an error out message that requires a complete reboot of the set to get QIK back!
9)Do an entry and get nothing. Do it again get nothing. Do it again and it works? Go to another machine and try it and it works?
10)Had an agent check in a customer going to FCO and it printed out bagtags for another customer going to RDU instead. Dont even have a clue what this one is about, but luckily the agent caught the city errors.
11)Have to handwrite manual tags for more than 3 connections still. Not a big issue to them. Unless you're checking in a group and have to handwrite all the tags. Fun time on cruise day when the staff is heading home to Southeast Asia with lots of connections and bags.
12)Issues with kiosk receipts and baggage issues for multi party pnrs (for expensing reports).
13)Programming error caused everyone born before 1938 to show as an unaccompanied minor and error out of kiosk checkin. Called IT and they said, how serious an issue is it? Hello, Florida calling, newlywed or nearly dead, you tell me. Took 1 1/2 months to correct.
14) Unable to "moveup" on the kiosk if the connecting city changes or goes from nonstop to conx or vv. How much $ is the company losing because of this? Of course you can go to an agent to get it done, but if the customer doesnt think about it, we dont get the $.
We were told the whole idea behind "inhouse" IT was the ability to quickly add or change the system as needed to fit our needs. So far, we seem to be on a slow track for change for many/most of the QIKFIX ideas that I know have been sent in (from my station). Keep getting the "we have to weigh the expense" spiel and so far it doesnt seem that they want to spend on anything except things that generate revenue (and even those dont work a lot of the time). I have talked to some IT people and I know they are frustrated by their ever growing "issues" lists, but the company wont let them work on them because of other pressing issues. I was told they just recently got approval to hire more to help out on the list some. I told them that they are not helping the front line by ignoring some of the things that have been sent in. They keep cutting staff because the kiosk "can" do these things so we dont need help, but it doesnt work so the front line is caught in the middle.
I cant wait for the company to say they need us to be more productive when it comes to contract talk. Give me the tools I need to do my job and they'll be flying out of line. Until then, QIKFIX this..... 🙂
Very good post and we all know your list goes on and on and on and on and on and know were managements main emphasis is
Dont call me Shirley
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Tad, what a great summary of some the problem with the steaming pile of manure that is QIK/SHARES. Its inability to check names against DM numbers must be costing a bundle in bogus miles.
The other issues you cover are also of great concern indeed, not only to front end users but should be of great concern to Tempe as well. And you are so right about the supposed ability to improve the system more quickly (and cheaply) than having Sabre do it. Yeah, right.
But will it ever change? What do yinz think?
This story only mentions that bookings and checking flight status was not working. Did WN have any actual flight disruptions as a result? Not being able to book future reservations is a brief hit to revenue (although many of those people will probably just try again and succeed).
Having a systemwide disruption, grounding/canceling flights and holding up passengers in transit like US had on 6/10 is far worse.
