Who should be fired...

[Art at ISP]

One thing I can say about the old US from an IT point of view, was they involved the customers in their development. My colleagues at FFOCUS and I spent countless hours with Travis Sarkes and Mark Kuhns and their teams--in fact one of the Consumer Advisory Board meetings was specifically on E commerce and web.

At Roachfest 2004 we were shown a prototype of the new US web site, with a demo of improved functionality and excellent features. We spent considerable time with the IT team at the time, going through feature by feature telling them what was needed and what was not. We were approaching beta testing of the new site when development was halted due to budgets (read bankruptcy).

I personally helped in the development of the Palm timetable application--I suggested they get a live update product which automatically downloaded new schedules when available, and I worked with the team on beta testing the application before it went live. The current AWA query application is not even compatible with Palm OS5!

For what its worth, I offered our assistance to my contact in Tempe to no avail--this web rollout could have been much smoother had customers had the opportunity to find these bugs in a beta test.

FFOCUS is trying to gather as much information as possible on web experiences, and we are going to try to estimate how much business just booked away in the past couple of weeks due to this horrible web site. We welcome any comments or experiences you may care to share.

Someone is going to have to pay for this web site debacle, and you know who that's gonna be don't you? The customer!

PS Since we know Tempe reads the boards, our offer to help still stands.....

 

[john john]

Someone is going to have to pay for this web site debacle, and you know who that's gonna be don't you? The customer!

Customer Service agents will pay with their knowledge experience education desire and passion for the job. Yet again the agents in the trenches will clean up the mess.

and hiring at the res centers in the USA.

THIS IS A GREAT CONCEPT HAS THIS EVERY BEEN TRY BEFORE

 

[Art at ISP]

John John,

Forgive me, you are also correct.

And know that your loyal frequent customers are aware of what you do and are very grateful that you're there.

 

[hp_fa]

Customer Service agents will pay with their knowledge experience education desire and passion for the job. Yet again the agents in the trenches will clean up the mess.

That I agree with. Having been a FA and a customer service supervisor I know that it is the frontline that gets stuck owning problems that the high paid folks create. So, if there are issues that exist because the website is not working properly or designed properly, the folks working for subsistence wages will again be expected to make the company look good (or better).

 

[Crzipilot]

Have to agree. The new PC timetable, I find frustratingly hard to look up flights and connections and such. Old was was easier....more simple.....

 

[USFlyer]

I think we need to give the IT folks a bit more leeway here. I'm an IT PM working on a major integration effort involving two multi-billion dollar firms that merged. The task of integrating all the systems is beyond difficult, and senior management has set dates that we must meet, no matter what. Some of these issues just will never come to light until you go live, it's the nature of the beast, which is why our corporate culture is to always "meet the date" and deal with the fallout after the fact.

 

[Travels2mch]

I think we need to give the IT folks a bit more leeway here. I'm an IT PM working on a major integration effort involving two multi-billion dollar firms that merged. The task of integrating all the systems is beyond difficult, and senior management has set dates that we must meet, no matter what. Some of these issues just will never come to light until you go live, it's the nature of the beast, which is why our corporate culture is to always "meet the date" and deal with the fallout after the fact.

I'm an IT PM too and this stuff is testing 101, it should have never gone into production. If I let a customer go live with this POS, my customer would freak and I'd probably be shown the door. I think the issue here is they didn't care, just get it out the door.

 

[USFlyer]

Well, before we blame the IT guys, we have no idea whether they threw up red flags yet senior management told them to go forward. I've been in MANY situations where everyone in IT says "we need to slow down or delay" yet some business manager says "too bad, go live".

I actually have had no issues with the web site whatsoever, so I really cannot speak to what should have been caught. But, realistically, you could QA for years and some things will just never come to light until you go live.

 

[ClueByFour]

I think we need to give the IT folks a bit more leeway here. I'm an IT PM working on a major integration effort involving two multi-billion dollar firms that merged. The task of integrating all the systems is beyond difficult, and senior management has set dates that we must meet, no matter what. Some of these issues just will never come to light until you go live, it's the nature of the beast, which is why our corporate culture is to always "meet the date" and deal with the fallout after the fact.

I disagree.

I just finished a multibillion dollar integration rollup, and I would have been summarily dismissed if my group turned out a performance like the new usairways.com

Of course, US management is trying desperately to hit dates--as predicted, the actual difficult parts of the merger are not going too well. If you think the website is a trip, just wait until they try to consolidate the backend reservation systems.

 

[FRANKSAT]

Parker has to go. He is responsible for the overall operation of these 2 airlines. He is displaying a high level of incompetence and irresponsibility.

Today is the website. Tomorrow will be safety. He needs to realize his failure and move on.

He has people reading this board and reporting back to him. He is well aware of the IT failure. But guess what? He do not care as long as the seating map are full of Xs.

 

[hp_fa]

Parker has to go. He is responsible for the overall operation of these 2 airlines. He is displaying a high level of incompetence and irresponsibility.

Today is the website. Tomorrow will be safety. He needs to realize his failure and move on.

Huh? Where has it ever been implied that Parker has ever had anything to do with flying an unsafe airline?

 

[av8or]

Parker has to go. He is responsible for the overall operation of these 2 airlines. He is displaying a high level of incompetence and irresponsibility.

Today is the website. Tomorrow will be safety. He needs to realize his failure and move on.

He has people reading this board and reporting back to him. He is well aware of the IT failure. But guess what? He do not care as long as the seating map are full of Xs.

nice first post ....talk about a troll :down:

 

[Prince of PAWOBs]

Parker has to go. He is responsible for the overall operation of these 2 airlines. He is displaying a high level of incompetence and irresponsibility.

Today is the website. Tomorrow will be safety. He needs to realize his failure and move on.

He has people reading this board and reporting back to him. He is well aware of the IT failure. But guess what? He do not care as long as the seating map are full of Xs.

Interesting...

I highly doubt anyone in Tempe is going to deliberately compromise anyone's safety.

The only thing Parker and crew might be guilty of is information hoarding. Not enough of a reason to fire someone, but enough of a reason for employee groups to complain.

I don't like his ability to answer questions, but I'm not interested in yet another CEO for such a trivial reason.

 

[FRANKSAT]

Here is another reason why I am saying that these people are irresponsible. Since the new site when into effect, I have not being able to log in. I follow the advice of those with faith in Tech Support and wrote them. Here is what I received:

Thank you for contacting US Airways by email. US Airways responds to messages seven days per week usually within 5-7 business days. If this schedule will not provide a timely response, please contact our Internet customer support desk directly at 800-327-7810.

I am in Europe right now and called that number which for me is not toll free and after hearing the US Air song for 10 consecutive minutes without any human intervention, I hung up.

These people totally abandoned their preferred traveler. I am considering recommending that my organization switch to another Star Alliance carrier.

 

[IT_Traveler]

Interesting...

I highly doubt anyone in Tempe is going to deliberately compromise anyone's safety.

The only thing Parker and crew might be guilty of is information hoarding. Not enough of a reason to fire someone, but enough of a reason for employee groups to complain.

I don't like his ability to answer questions, but I'm not interested in yet another CEO for such a trivial reason.

A trivial reason? Pissing off so many people, many of which are your best customers is a trivial reason? Hmmm... That's an interesting way to put it.