By most accounts, United is starting to get a handle on its phone hold times … two months after the system switch. But clearly some people aren’t happy as evidenced by this hi-larious sign that my friend saw this past weekend at a United gate in New Orleans.
Let’s be honest, I was just looking for a topic that would let me post this photo. But what the heck; let your United complaints fly below …. It feels good to vent, right?
It’s been almost 3 weeks since United combined with Continental into a new reservation system and as I said right after, the transition has gone well. But there is one side effect that’s not sitting too well with many . . . long phone holds. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw me want to rip my hair out on Monday of this week. Three weeks into this combined system, my patience is wearing thin. What about you? Have long hold times plagued your United experience? Will it impact your decision to fly the airline?
If you believed the headlines, you’d think that United had melted down over the weekend when it finally retired its Apollo computer reservation system in favor of a version of Continental’s SHARES system to form one airline from the customer perspective. But the truth was far from that. The incredibly complex switch went off quite well with only some minor glitches that should be ironed out quickly.
I think my favorite headline was “United’s computer chaos” from The Economist’s Gulliver blog. Seriously, guys? A little dramatic, no?
The rationale behind that post was that United ran a poor on-time operation on Saturday, the day of the change. Sure, flights were delayed to some extent to accommodate passengers who were delayed by some glitches, but these weren’t awful delays. I went to masFlight to get more details on what happened.
masFlight has comprehensive flight status information that it can slice and dice in a million different ways. So I asked for details on the United operation from Saturday, and you can see the data here. First off, the combined airline completed 98.4 percent of all flights. That’s not a bad result at all, so there certainly wasn’t a problem with cancellations.
Regarding on-time performance, masFlight reports that the combined airline with all of its regional affiliates had 65.8 percent of flights arrive within 14 minutes of schedule (that’s what the Department of Transportation defines as “on time”). That’s not a stellar result, but it’s hardly a meltdown. It’s just a bad day that is fully expected when you make such a massive conversion.
Since the airline settled on Continental’s legacy system, it’s no surprise that the old United operation performed worse than the old Continental operation which ran above 70 percent. But even the old United saw 62.2 percent of flights arrive within 14 minutes. Again, not good, but not terrible either. In fact, it’s probably better that there were minor delays or a lot of people might have just missed their flights.
Reservations Intact
Let’s talk about what’s most important. When the new system went live, all reservations were given new record locators, and the newly-minted MileagePlus numbers should have replaced the old ones. While no work should have been needed by any passenger (the system would still recognize the old record locators if used), we didn’t want to take any chances so we reviewed all Cranky Concierge client records.
Everything was correct. The new MileagePlus numbers were in there. (And when partner frequent flier numbers were used, they were still in there.) All seats were retained, and it all looked as it should. That’s the biggest concern for any system switch – data loss. That didn’t happen here.
Of course, not everything went perfectly, and that’s where many of these other articles focused. So what did go wrong?
Now that we have this switch out of the way, life should get much easier for United travelers. There will be no more issues with two mileage programs and codesharing across airlines. Any reservations agent can help with your reservation no matter what. It’s one airline from a customer perspective with only a few minor exceptions.
The Remaining Differences
Where are things still different? There are a handful of airports that still have ex-Continental flights in different places than ex-United flights. You can see the full list of non-combined airports, but most aren’t big issues because they won’t see much connecting traffic between the two sides anyway. It just requires being careful when you drive to the airport in places like Boston, New York/LaGuardia, Kansas City, and San Diego to make sure you’re in the right place.
Possibly the biggest standout is at London/Heathrow where ex-Continental flights are still in their previous SkyTeam home, Terminal 4. United and most other Star Alliance airlines are in Terminal 1, so many connections from Continental flights will require a longer connecting time.
The crews also are still not mixed, but that’s not likely to be noticeable for most passengers. That and other small vestiges of separate airline identities will continue to disappear over time. This last step was the biggest hurdle by far, so it’s exciting to have it behind us with minimal disruption.
It’s Not Actually News When a Plane’s Landing Gear Doesn’t Go Down – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
A United Express flight had its nose gear fail to extend earlier this week. This shouldn’t be news.
In the Trenches: Defining Roles – Intuit Small Business Blog
Trying to define roles in a small business is tougher than it might seem.
Many cities lose out in Southwest-AirTran merger – USA Today
I was interviewed about the loss of service from Southwest in smaller cities.
There are a lot of different milestones that can be used to determine when a merger is truly complete. The one I always use is when you can no longer book a flight on both airlines. 
For United and Continental, that day comes this Saturday.
In the wee hours of early Saturday morning, United’s Apollo reservations system will be shut down in favor of Continental’s SHARES system. In fact, we’ll see a lot kept from the Continental side, even though the United name will reign supreme.
Beginning on Saturday, you will no longer be able to book a flight on Continental – they’ll all be on United. This is great news . . . not that the Continental name is disappearing but rather that there is only one airline to deal with. This means no more problems of working with two different airlines even though they’re really one.
Considering I spent over an hour trying to use a Mileage Plus member’s miles to upgrade a Continental flight last week, this piece of the merger couldn’t come soon enough.
Of course, the transition won’t be easy. It never is. The United reservations folks will now be forced to use an unfamiliar system. Training undoubtedly helps, but it’s still a big change. And then there’s the physical switch itself.
It is no small task taking all that reservation data, putting it into a new system, and then hoping it all works as planned. It’s never a perfect transition. Remember when US Airways and America West flipped the switch? There were a lot of problems.
So, if you’re flying United for the week beginning this Saturday, give yourself some extra time at the airport just in case. Here are some other things to keep in mind.
Reservations
Since the airlines are moving to Continental’s reservation system, it’s those record locators (confirmation numbers) that will survive. If you booked on United before the system switch, I would assume that there will be a mechanism for the new system to still recognize those old numbers when you try to use them. But if you had a split reservation with both United and Continental flights, you’ll be fine just remembering the Continental number going forward.
UPDATE: I just received clarification from someone at United that this is not quite what’s happening. Both United reservations and Continental reservations will be transferred into a new SHARES system, so there will be a new reservation number assigned to each reservation. If you have a reservation with both United and Continental flights, you will have three record locators: the old United one, the old Continental one, and the new combined United one. The key point? Any of them will work when you try to pull up your reservation.
The Website
If you’re one of the few people who love the not-so-affectionately nicknamed United.bomb website, then you’ll be sad to know that the Continental website is the survivor.
It’s really going to be a carbon copy of the current Continental website. For a pre-production version of the new site, head over to pss.united.com and you can play around.
MileagePlus
March 3 also will be the effective date of the new MileagePlus combined frequent flier program. If you have a Continental OnePass number, that will be your Mileage Plus number. If you have a current Mileage Plus number from United, then that’s toast.
If you had both and linked them, then you’ll just consolidate under the Continental number. If you never had a OnePass number, you’ll be getting a new one from United.
Patience is the key in the next couple weeks. If you’re flying United, it could be rough going as the systems combine, but in the end, it will be a much better experience since the airlines will operate as one.
There are more things to be merged, but most of those aren’t as visible to travelers. This is the big weekend.
