I don't disagree with you, but American hasn't come close to completing their merger integration. In fact, they're just starting. The big stuff like the reservation system won't be merged until 2015.

Unless you're talking about the TWA merger. That's done.

 

American? Good God man, USair and America Worst never completed their merger from 9 years ago. Dougie just ran them as separate airlines, and played the employees off against each other. Amazingly, he made good money doing it.

I would bet the combined American ends up being as big a cluster $uck as we are, maybe worse.

As far as IT systems, lUAL's did have a history of already operating an airline with 700 planes a 12,000 pilots. The only problem is it didn't really do that great a job.

 

You're right about the merger at AA. It is not complete but friends over there seem to think it'll be a cake walk compared to the stuff we did over here. Maybe the AWA/USAir merger and the dumb stuff over here gave them a little insight on how it should be done.

Unlike the poor management over here, their management knows the value of using the systems capable of handling the airlines infrastructure. We continue to have melt-downs in all areas of computqer operation. Including reservations, dispatch, employee services(pay) and for the pilots the struggle with CCS and skynet/flyingtogether.

We have people defending Jeff's decisions because they somehow think he's preserving a CAL way of like. What they don't understand is that Jeff choose the smaller airline methods and infrastructure at the expense of the entire airline. Everybody in Flight Operations has experienced the pitfalls of his poor decisions in one way or the other.

I don't know who'll be number 1 or 2 but we won't be in either spot.

 

Compared to what? If you're using the CAL system for comparison, hands down the old UAL system was well above it in all areas.

 

Do not confuse capability with content. The problem pilots are experiencing with CCS is due to the fact it was a poor inplementation plan by the company. They failed to program it to account for UPA. The system has not shown any problems handling the size of the company. By the same token the amount of changes addeded to CCS in the last few months has been noticeable. Same goes with Shares. It was a poor cut over and insufficient training of frontline on its use.

 

Lewis Black hands down, nailed it...

 

But still living in the 80's...

 

Sorry, melt-downs have occurred and continue to occur. It's been well documented in the media and by Jeff himself. Only he choses to blame the frontline employees instead of taking responsibility. Jeff is trying to turn junk into shinola and it's not working.

By the companies own reports we are fighting for 3rd place with SW. A position Jeff is probable comfortable with considering he was competing with SW for 4th before the merger and looks at it like a move up.

The simply fact is the employees are not the cause of the failings of the new United. It's Jeff's performance and implementation of the merger and poor choices at the expense of the employees. I don't know how you can defend him in any way. Do you really think you'll find a following with the frontline employees.

 

Did you quote the wrong post? Read again what I wrote. The meltdowns are not from CCS or Shares failing.

I specifically state that they have failed in leading. I was purely responding to the part about IT platforms. Thanks again for making my point that people confuse capabilities and execution.

 

You must not understand the relationship of hardware to software. I'll try to give you a simple explanation so you can understand.

You have 10 ton of dirt to move and only a quarter ton truck to move it. No matter how you work it, it'll take 40 trips to move the dirt and since it has to be done in 8 hour period at 5 trips per hour. (With me so far) everything is working fine.

But on certain days we have 20 tons of dirt to move. Obvious math says all we have to do is increase the tonnage per load to a half ton for the numbers work. The down side is the truck has a tendency to breakdown more or has to move slower to get the job done.

This is exactly what happens with the relationship of hardware to software in a computer system. If the hardware is not capable handling the request place on it by the software it breaks or slow to the point of delaying all functions. As in CCS and Shares.

It's not a hard concept. If the hardware can't handle the software demands at peak times you upgrade the hardware for the peak levels/times. Like in the truck example, they could have bought a second quarter ton or a bigger truck to handle the load. In the case of CCS and Shares the company is off-loading a lot of computer functions to others systems to handle the load to keep CCS and Shares functioning at an acceptable level. Downside is some of the information has to be exchanged between system and that induces other errors. (Payroll comes to mind).

It would have been easier and more cost effective to go with the more capable system(bigger truck) from the get go and avoid some of the pitfalls and melt-downs we've experienced.