Us Chooses Shares For Computer System

[tadjr]

US Airways Chooses EDS/SHARES Reservations System

Today, US Airways announced that EDS/SHARES has been selected as the newly-combined company's reservations system. The EDS reservations system is currently used by America West Airlines and will be expanded throughout US Airways.

EDS has a history with both airlines. As the largest provider of global information technologies (IT) infrastructure services to the airline industry, EDS' technology reaches beyond the reservations system, which has allowed them to serve as US Airways outsourced IT partner since mid-2001. EDS has powered America West's reservations system and other technologies since its first flight in 1983.

Why EDS/SHARES?
Joe Beery, chief information officer, explained that the EDS/Shares was selected due to many factors, including:
* It's cost effective. EDS/SHARES offered the best price in per-transaction fees, and their initial costs and the cost of upkeep were the most competitive.
* It's user-friendly. An easy-to-use interface (QIK) was built and is maintained in-house (through America West Technologies). The user-friendly front end allows the airline to handle training in-house and reduces the time it takes to train new agents. In addition, passenger processing is faster through QIK, which makes passengers and customers happy, and ultimately helps the bottom line. Most importantly, QIK - through SHARES- sets our people up for success by providing a truly user-friendly tool for great customer service.
* It's flexible. Because we maintain the program in-house, we can make changes and enhancements to the program to suit our changing company, all at minimal costs.

What should we expect during the transition?
The transition is expected to take between 12 and 15 months, allowing time not only for training, but also to standardize (and modernize) the equipment in the stations system wide. The transition plan is in the works and will include a training and deployment plan. Affected employees will receive training details as a schedule is determined.

Some synergy stations have started training and, by most accounts, US Airways employees are finding the transition from Sabre to SHARES to be favorable. As one employee in CLT said, "I will admit that I arrived here believing that SABRE is the better system. After one week I am convinced that I was wrong. The QIK front of SHARES is phenomenal. There is absolutely no typing of code. Everything is Windows 2000 pop-up driven. Reissues with the touch of a button. Timatic programmed to just type a city code into a box. Edit codes automatically append. It is slick."

Again, affected employees can look for more details to come as the transition progresses and as the training schedule is confirmed.

Response- While I have only been using it for just under a week, it is fairly easy to use. Many of the entries appear to be easier, yet there are some things about it that definitely need to be updated and tweaked to make it more user friendly. Hopefully having the inhouse programming will make this possible. They do have a way for front line people to communicate via Y message directly to the programmers and I have seen the suggestion and response pages in the system. It does appear that they do listen and try to make adjustments if possible. They will no doubt be getting lots of mail soon.
Regarding the 12-15 month transition. Starting today this would put it at about Xmas time/New Years 2007. PLEASE DO NOT DO IT THEN!!!! We already did the Sabre conversion right before Tgiving and it was a fiasco. Even if we must wait another 3-4 months to totally convert it will definitely be worth it vs switching over at the busy holiday season. Learn from the past mistakes please.

 

[muircross]

Shares might be OK for CS, but for ramp function they're going to have to update it. Working HP flights now is like a flashback to the 80's.

 

[OldGuyinPA]

Just do manual paper work ...like the old days.

 

[robbedagain]

what is the difference with the HP computers? i have delt with sabre and i know you must sign into both res and decks to due what you want. does hp computer have to do that or no?

 

[tadjr]

For the customers right now probably no notice. The people who fly HP dont really notice a difference. Now when we actually start switching over, you might notice us taking some time to figure out where we want to go to do what we want to do, but that would be about it customer wise.
The HP system is fairly easy to learn. Some entries are more cumbersome, but its all done with pop ups to fill in. No more long strung together computer entries since thats all done behind the scenes of the Qik masks. I've been doing the HP flights for a week and so far it seems fairly easy. Of course when you run into something that you arent familiar with it takes a while to find it, but for most of the everyday entries its ok.
The one good thing is with the inhouse IT people, suggestions can be evaluated and changed in a quick and timely manner. Our trainer said they suggested a change while they were in training class and less than 2 hours later it had been updated and loaded ready to go. How long does it take something in Sabre to get changed? Still waiting for the electronic SSTs there.

 

[BoeingBoy]

How long does it take something in Sabre to get changed? Still waiting for the electronic SSTs there.

[post="311063"][/post]​

As you undoubtedly know, since U signed up for the "no frills" version of Sabre every desired change has to go to the company bean-counters first. How much will it cost to have Sabre make the change vs how high a priority is the change? Once it gets approved, it goes in the queue of changes to be made based on priority. If something more important comes along, "your" change gets bumped down. Assuming that the desired change finally makes it to the top of the queue, it probably doesn't take the Sabre people that long to make the change. Unless a change saves money, waiting in the queue (assuming approval in the first place) is what takes so long.

Jim

 

[tadjr]

That is what was so amazing with the HP people. No study need be done, no triplicate, etc. The trainer just called the IT lady, told her what the room of US trainers had suggested, she said ok, let me see what I can do, and two hours later called them back to say reboot, its been done.
They have a suggestion form (Y message actually) right on their computer so anyone can send a note for suggestions to change something. They also inform people of the status of their suggestion on the computer as well and have actual dialog with the people who use it every day to try to make it more user friendly. Thats what I find amazing. Cant wait to see what they reply to some suggestions that our training class had mentioned.

 

[PBI2FLL]

<_< I find it hard to believe that we'll actually go back to MANUAL weight and balance?? That's just ridiculous! How about the current CLP? Will that department be eliminated?

 

[tadjr]

They do manual w&b and its making the ops guys lose some weight having to run to the plane at the end of each flight.
I would think that they would look at getting some type of automated w&b system if its possible with Shares. Anyone know what CO uses since they are also on Shares?

 

[crusher]

Does SHARES have anything like Gate Manager. This program is one of the single shining lights of sabre. It would be nearly impossible to run the operation in a hub or focus city without it. The old pacer equivilant was the right system and it was not a good system . The larger cities use gate manager and staff manager. I can only hope shares has something like them or that we might continue to use them.

 

[ChrisUS]

They do manual w&b and its making the ops guys lose some weight having to run to the plane at the end of each flight.
I would think that they would look at getting some type of automated w&b system if its possible with Shares. Anyone know what CO uses since they are also on Shares?

[post="311076"][/post]​

The system MUST be easy since the CO agents at our station were so clueless! If they had an invol, they had to call their help desk. Very sad. They always screwed up ETKT reissues too. You had to go look for the ticket and gain control but try makingh them do that in reverse. LOL

 

[SoftLanding]

They do manual w&b and its making the ops guys lose some weight having to run to the plane at the end of each flight.
I would think that they would look at getting some type of automated w&b system if its possible with Shares. Anyone know what CO uses since they are also on Shares?

[post="311076"][/post]​

Have heard that management are looking to install printers on the jetways, and we'll get a hard copy before pushback. Also, auto loading of our flight plans with the touch of a button will be gone shortly...Sabre is too expensive; I'm all for making our ops leaner.

Should have gotten rid of CLP YEARS ago, totally waste of money.

Nothing against CLP employees, of course, just looking at things from an efficiency standpoint.

Must say I don't fully understand why the company is not looking at investing in a handheld gizmo ala LUV/JBLU, even though JBLU has a laptop. To configure a handheld gizmo for w&b would cost next to nothing...

(Maybe a LUV pilot can give us a cost estimate?!)

We are in 2005, no?! LOL

SoftLanding

 

[heyray]

[
Should have gotten rid of CLP YEARS ago, totally waste of money.

Nothing against CLP employees, of course, just looking at things from an efficiency standpoint.



What a nice guy. Sad to see a person from one work group claiming that another work group is useless.

 

[barbeetantrums]

They do manual w&b and its making the ops guys lose some weight having to run to the plane at the end of each flight.
I would think that they would look at getting some type of automated w&b system if its possible with Shares. Anyone know what CO uses since they are also on Shares?

[post="311076"][/post]​

CO uses a centralized W&B located in Houston.

BTW, Shares isn't used for W&B, a seperate system called MAPPER is used.

 

[SoftLanding]

[
Should have gotten rid of CLP YEARS ago, totally waste of money.

Nothing against CLP employees, of course, just looking at things from an efficiency standpoint.
What a nice guy.  Sad to see a person from one work group claiming that another work group is useless.

[post="311140"][/post]​

heyray,

again, as I said, nothing personal...

Now, hasn't that been the problem at USAIR/USAirways, doing things the way things were done in the '70's, '80's, '90's and so on?

Imagine what could have been:

1. If Colodny et Co. figured out for themselves that the company needed fewer aircraft types.

2. Negoitiated "smarter"agreements with all the labor groups after the PSA and Peidmont mergers; did we really need cleaners on the Florida Shuttle? Again, nothing against cleaners, pilots , F/A's, mechanics etc.

heyray,

you seem to believe, looking at your comment above, we're better off NOW than we MIGHT have been with proactive management.

What say you?

SoftLanding