Sunday, October 18, 2015

Few Glitches in American Switchover • Transfer of its US Airways unit to its passenger-reservations system went smoothly overall



The Wall Street Journal
By Susan Carey
Oct. 18, 2015 8:05 p.m. ET


American Airlines Group Inc. ’s transfer of its US Airways unit to its passenger-reservations system appeared to go smoothly overall in its first two days despite some temporary glitches.

The world’s largest airline by traffic said on Sunday, however, that it remains on alert for possible problems as passenger traffic builds in the next few days.

American made the complex switch early Saturday, after nearly two years of preparation. The US Airways website went dark early Saturday and directed customers to aa.com after the last US Airways flights Friday night reached their destinations. All booked reservations now are transferred to American’s system, provided by Sabre Corp. , and all flights are operated and sold under the AA flight code.

American said more than 90% of its flights arrived within 14 minutes of schedule on Saturday. Among the initial glitches, American said airport information displays at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport briefly didn’t show flights and their departure and arrival times, due to a problem with third-party providers who supply that information. American said the problem was fixed in a few hours.

Some customers arriving Saturday for flights at Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s La Guardia Airport ended up at the wrong terminals because their boarding passes were printed so early they didn’t contain gate information. And the switch meant some former US Airways flights now operate from LAX’s Terminal 6, while most American flights continue to operate out of Terminal 4—confusing some passengers. A similar situation arose at La Guardia.

Some passengers also encountered misunderstandings about their frequent-flier status and were mistakenly asked to pay for their checked luggage, according to the airline, which said check-in agents used helplines to receive guidance on the information in their training manuals.

To prepare for the shift, American had reduced the number of flights to and from its three US Airways hubs on Saturday, temporarily increased staffing at its airports around the world and managed the transition from a main “command center” in Fort Worth, Texas, and 23 satellite offices, which are slated to remain open until Oct. 27.

Some other airlines have struggled with similar information-technology transitions after mergers of their own, although Delta Air Lines Inc., made the change smoothly in 2010 when integrating Northwest Airlines Corp.

United Continental Holdings Inc. had more problems when it switched its United unit onto the Continental reservations platform in 2012, in part because it chose to integrate frequent-flier plans, websites and all reservations on a single day.

American, like Delta, has used a phased approach and merger their frequent-flier plans months ahead of the reservations system alignments.

- Source:  http://www.wsj.com

No comments:

Post a Comment