Reservations With 200+ Calls

[youngblood]

Tonight at approximately 8pm there were 177 calls on hold. A woman sitting near me gets a 2 1/2 hour home early. I think "Fine. Someone made a mistake." Thirty minutes later with over 230 calls on hold someone else gets a 3 hour home early. I understand they are not giving OT, but sending people home with that many calls on hold? I smell something fishy!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Art at ISP]

My last few calls to CP had the phone ringing and ringing, then placed on hold up to 5 minutes. While that itself is not terrible, we have heard that CP desk is now handling overflow of regular reservations---can anyone confirm?

 

[pi1984]

Res has been given home early every day for the last two weeks except on weekends. We've jokingly referred to our new office at Atento. It seems they must not work on weekends. It really is curious though. Sometimes there are 80 calls on hold at the time. I think your right. Something is fishy. What could it be?
It is also curious that agents have been taking home early even with the reduced pay. Could that be that we are tired of the same old diatribe daily. "No wonder your company is in bankruptcy." This is not directed at you Art, but will passengers ever get a clue that the cheap fares everyone wants has something to do with the lack of customer service. Obviously for 100.00 rt coast to coast, the only way to sustain those fares is to drop overhead, as in reservations. Will the public ever figure that out. On the other hand, I usually have my share of loyals, who even refuse the low fares and tell me they are too cheap. This is for you Art. After listening to cheap, cheap, cheap all day everyday, our few loyals such as yourself keep us going. I was taught 21 years ago that customer service is everything and no amount of bashing by our management is going to change our minds about that. Even though we are constantly harrassed and monitored, we will still give great customer service until we are pulled from the phones.

 

[Art at ISP]

PI1984,

Bless you and thank you!! I agree with you--the pervasive loser fares are partially responsible for the CS situation, but there are other causes as well.

You are also right that those of us who fly every week never asked for GO fares--we asked for FAIR fares....there's a big difference-you could make a profit with FAIR fares...

My best to you all...

 

[bobcat]

Youngblood

Fishy is not even the word for the underhanded dealings that are going on in Res. Zero calls one minute, spike to 200 the next, then mysteriously fall to zero again at any given time. Overtime galore, then with no change in call volume, home earlies and advance VTO...with calls on hold! Does management think everyone is stupid? Everyone knows something is going on and all it does is stir the pot. It's over! Why don't they just let the "fat lady" sing her last note?

pi1984

Why is it curious that agents are taking those eagerly awaited home earlies? No one can stand being there for one second longer than they absolutely have to be. With the pay as low as it is now, a few hours of HE here and there is not going to be missed in paychecks. The pay cut has already put most in financial strait so, what's a few more dollars. At this point it is more important to keep sanity. Most know that it's almost over for Res. and are impatiently waiting for that "Friday Big Announcement" to set them free.

 

[MCORORES]

Think a lot of my fellow coworkers are just plain fed up with it. They do not care about the paycut. Some believe sanity is more important than the good old $$$$$. I take a different stand. Think it is more fun working my 8hrs doing what I do best and being the so called "thorn in their side". You can take my $$$$, you can take my benis but YOU CANNOT TAKE MY WORK ETHIC!!!! Could care less about how many calls on hold. Just take one call at a time. Art at ISP, CHP does handle back flow calls from res. Reissues, Silver and Gold Preferred members ect. Just like some in general sales take CHP back up calls.

 

[ITRADE]

So how does this jive with the notion that nobody is booking US?

 

[BoeingBoy]

So how does this jive with the notion that nobody is booking US?

[post="201278"][/post]​

Obviously it's only anecdotal "evidence", but 10 passengers (including 2 non-revs) from DCA to PBI on my last trip isn't good.....

Jim

 

[US1YFARE]

Obviously it's only anecdotal "evidence", but 10 passengers (including 2 non-revs) from DCA to PBI on my last trip isn't good.....

Jim

[post="201288"][/post]​

I was on about 6 flights last week throughout the week and they were all fairly full or completely full. Didn't get upgraded on 1 and upgraded at the gate on 2. And, I have also found that I am on hold longer than usual when calling the CP desk.

 

[bobcat]

ITRADE

The majority of the calls tying up the lines are those darn pesky dot com calls and the next largest number of calls are DM and the rest are the "bus riders" looking for that $79.00 fare to travel coast to coast. Seems very few calls are from dedicated US customers, though there are still some. The company is paying those "high" wages to agents to straighten out thousands of dot com problems when dot com is supposed to be the plan for getting rid of Res. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it? This company is really screwed up!!!!!!

 

[BoeingBoy]

I thought it might be a good time to update the daily bookings, as reported in US Airways Today.

The numbers are as follows. The letter at the beginning of each line is the day of week, the letter after each bookings number is M=mainline, E=Express.

W 8/18 - 110,000M, 44,000E
T 8/19 - NOT AVAILABLE
F 8/20 - 128,000M, 52,000E
M 8/23 - 125,000M, 48,000E
T 8/24 - 99,000M, 40,000E
W 8/25 - 99,000M, 41,000E
T 8/26 - 111,000M, 46,000E
F 8/27 - NOT AVAILABLE
M 8/29 - NOT AVAILABLE
T 8/31 - 85,000M, 35,000E
W 9/01 - 92,000M, 37,000E
T 9/02 - 127,000M, 50,000E
F 9/03 - 121,000M, 32,000E
M 9/06 - NOT AVAILABLE
T 9/07 - 123,000M, 50,000E
W 9/08 - 90,000M, 38,000E
T 9/09 - 92,000M, 39,000E
F 9/10 - 105,000M, 45,000E
M 9/13 - 92,000M, 40,000E
T 9/14 - 76,000M, 35,000E
W 9/15 - 89,000M, 40,000E
T 9/16 - 102,000M, 43,000E
F 9/17 - NOT AVAILABLE
M 9/20 - 106,000M, 45,000E
T 9/21 - 81,000M, 36,000E
W 9/22 - 90,000M, 40,000E
T 9/23 - 111,000M, 47,000E
F 9/24 - 118,000M, 52,000E
M 9/27 - 113,000M, 45,000E
T 9/28 - 90,000M, 38,000E
W 9/29 - 95,000M, 41,000E
T 9/30 - 116,000M, 49,000E
F10/01 - 120,000M, 53,000E
M10/04 - 109,000M, 46,000E
T10/05 - 86,000M, 38,000E
W10/06 - 102,000M, 43,000E
T10/07 - 130,000M, 54,000E
F10/08 - 143,000m, 62,000E
M10/11 - 134,000M, 55,000E
T10/12 - 108,000M, 47,000E
W10/13 - 105,000M, 45,000E
T10/14 - 123,000M, 53,000E
F10/15 - 131,000M, 56,000E
M10/18 - 122,000M, 51,000E
T10/19 - NOT AVAILABLE
W10/20 - 104,000M, 44,000E
T10/21 - 122,000M, 51,000E
F10/22 - 128,000M, 56,000E
M10/25 - 116,000M, 49,000E
T10/26 - 087,000M, 38,000E
W10/27 - 097,000M, 41,000E
T10/28 - 110,000M, 46,000E
F10/29 - 115,000M, 49,000E
M11/01 - 098,000M, 37,000E
T11/02 - NOT AVAILABLE
W11/03 - 091,000M, 36,000E
T11/04 - 105,000M, 44,000E
F11/05 - 115,000M, 49,000E
M11/08 - 107,000M, 46,000E
T11/09 - 083,000M, 37,000E
W11/10 - 107,000M, 44,000E
T11/11 - 114,000M, 48,000E
F11/12 - 107,000M, 47,000E
M11/15 - 114,000M, 49,000E

Jim

 

[chele5]

So how does this jive with the notion that nobody is booking US?

[post="201278"][/post]​

fyi - most of the calls we get are something like this - "I can't understand the person at the website customer service - can you help me?"
or "I am unable to book my dividend miles online - can you help me?"
or "I requested my boarding pass - and my printer did not print it - what do I do?"

There are a few bookings - that is true - but a majority of the calls I have heard are more like the examples I just gave.

It's not what it used to be.

 

[Res]

It's holiday travel time...passengers are booking Thanksgiving and Christmas...very few booking for travel after beginning of January....passengers are waiting to see what transpires....

 

[longing4piedmont]

Well the way I see it, one of the small things I can do is quit booking on the web and start booking on the desk. From what I can tell the bean counters are watching how much you "sale" during any given shift. My concern is that if most CP's are like me and book on line, management will never understand how important you are to us.

It will not mean much in the end, but I know at least one agent on the desk who is going to get to book my $1,000 a week ticket as soon as I can fly again. Giving up the bonus miles for booking on line seems insignificant vs the risk of the desk going away. Any other CP's want to join me?

 

[US1YFARE]

Any other CP's want to join me?

[post="201330"][/post]​

I call them when I can. The CP desk goes out of their way to help with even the simplest booking or question. And, on the complicated ones, it would take you a decade to do it, if at all, on us.com.

I certainly don't use US.com for the bonuses. Even if I make a reservation on US.com, I end up calling the CP desk over 50% of the time because something happens when the reservation is processed. Also, I get too many errors when booking on US.com and it is just so much easier to call the CP desk because they can give me an answer to my question 100 times faster and without pulling teeth.