Six weeks into "Becoming United", passengers, travel agents and even employees of United continue to deal with integration problems. A single source of frustration centers on the fateful decision of adopting the "Shares" platform which was used by Continental Airlines. While employees of United (prior to merger) were trained to use Shares, the training was obviously insufficient to deal with the multitude of complexities that Travelport, (United's discarded system) dealt with intuitively. Shares on the other hand is counter-intuitive, limited and quite complex.
It is now quite evident that United's management has severely underestimated the problems that would surface by adopting a system that is simply incapable of handling the massive transfer of incompatible data. Adding to the merger woes, United simultaneously adopted far-reaching changes in their frequent flyer programs, mileage status, upgrades, check-in process, and they simply eliminated the international rate desk. Mileage Plus higher status travelers are quite unhappy. With most of their own employees remaining unfamiliar with their own system, it will be a long time before this integration is on the right track.
http://www.premieretravel.com/
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