UPDATE: I cannot edit the title because UPGRD will get dinged by Google, but the author who I lifted this story from last night has revised his article. It seems that it will be CO’s technology systems, not UA’s, that will dominate the post-merger airline. Please see Fozz’s insightful commentary in the commentary section. I have also updated the table. Unfortunately, this news makes chances very likely that we’ll see Continental’s upgrade scheme adopted. As I share below, I am also worried what might happen to the ability of UA agents to handle re-boooking and upgrades during irr/ops.
***
Right now Continental and United use very different technology systems to handle everything from employee payroll to passenger check-in. While Continental is often heralded by frequent flyers as being technologically superior to UA (after all, they have a much better website and nifty mobile app), UA/CO has chosen to primarily use United technology once the merger is complete:
| System | Airline |
|---|---|
| Airport Resource Management | United |
| Baggage Scanning | Continental |
| Cargo Operations | Undetermined |
| Check-in | Continental |
| Contact Centers | Continental |
| Crew Management | Continental |
| E-Commerce | Continental |
| Finance | United |
| Flight Operations | United |
| Flight Profitability | Continental |
| Gate Management | Continental |
| Human Resources | United |
| Inventory Operations | Continental |
| Mail Scanning | United |
| Network | United |
| Payroll | United |
| Reservations | Continental |
| Revenue Management | United |
| Sales | Continental |
Migration will occur throughout 2011 and into 2012. I have only one concern: the gate management system. I do not know exactly what that system entails, but I am a big fan of the black/green/blue screens that United gate agents use right now to process upgrades, standbys, and to rebook. I have a bad feeling that if United gate agents have to learn how to use a new system, they might not have or know how to exercise the latitude they have now to make things happen. You know what I mean…
Despite having taken many trips on CO this year, I am not all familiar with the power CO agents have in dealing with rebooking, rerouting, and standbys. I trust that with the new system in place (if gate management is indeed what I think it is), UA customer service and gate agents will still be able to do the little things I (hate to admit it) take for granted now like adding a segment if necessary or doing a co-terminal standby.
I would expect the gate management system from Continental to be just a front-end GUI – perhaps Fastair will chime in. 😉
I read that ‘Orion’ will be included in the surviving UA systems… brings back memories as I was working on the pre-launch of it back in ’98 when I worked in IM!
The ‘Flight Profitability’ system from CO interests me… is that to maximize add-ons/buy-ups/etc from a sales perspective, or more the fuel/salaries/maintenance on the operational side? If it’s the former, I might be a little afraid they’re going to go with the CO method of buy-up upgrades before any UDU’s are processed. Yikes!
Er, that article doesn’t quite seem right. From what I understand, CO is the one using SHARES which is what will survive the merged. So it doesn’t sound like UA tech will dominate.
@Darren: An excellent point. Let’s hope UA doesn’t adopt CO’s upgrade scheme. I have feeling they will, though.
@Rob: I am not an expert and in airline technology systems, but I will be keeping a close eye out for additional material on this subject that may address the problem you have noted. Thanks.
@Rob: That makes sense… I glanced over that part and you’re right… UA uses Apollo, so it would then make sense for the gate management system to use CO if Shares is indeed the surviving res system. This leads me to really now believe we’re going with the CO upgrade scheme. Good for the bottom line, bad for the low-fare buyers like myself. Now I’m REALLY hoping UA keeps E+
Matthew, in reference to your original point, CO has generally better front end systems while UA has better back-end systems. Over the years, UA focused on back-end technology while CO focused on front-end. That is why we see .bomb to be behind and CO having so many issues handling challenging changes.
The back-end system CO uses, Shares is pretty awful and limits CO in many ways. The only plus side is that they own it outright. While UA doesn’t own their back-end system and instead spends millions of dollars a year on a back-end system (I think Amadeus or Apollo, though I could be confusing the name).
That said, reports have outside of the article that Shares will survive. While I can understand the desire to save millions, I also am fearful of things like on-the-fly reservation changes, irregular ops and the like as ticketing is one of Shares’ biggest short-comings.
At least they aren’t going to pull a DL and get rid of the better website. Could you imagine if we lost co.com for reward itineraries?
@Darren: I would say that the end-system has no impact on what system is used. Either system can do both and up until recently, CO didn’t have the aggressive buy-up program. This will really be policy driven and not technology driven.
@Fozz: Ah, yes, I agree with your point about the upgrade system being policy-driven. Still scares me to think the CO ‘Flight Profitability’ system will get all artificial intelligence on us and take over!
Your table is not accurate. It does not match the article you linked. Especially notice “Reservations” and “Inventory Operations” you list as using UA’s systems while the article you link says CO.
There are others too, I think, but those are the two I was interested in.
It seems that perhaps the folks you linked updated their post after a reader comment correcting them, so you probably did copy their info correctly, they just went and changed it.
@Hans Mast – you’re correct on both points. The guy updated his article and now I will update mine. I certainly copied it correctly last night.
I just hope that customer compensation falls under UA’s systems. 😉