Distribution Strategies
UAL gears up for conversion to a single passenger service system
United Airlines and Continental Airlines have been working towards migration to a single reservation and passenger service system (PSS), with anticipated implementation late in the first quarter of 2012.
United Continental, the holding company of United and Continental, considers the work on its single passenger service system to be a key component of its merger integration.
“…the key to our becoming one airline for our customers is our conversion to a single passenger service system, which is known as Shares and is the system currently used by our Continental subsidiary. Our information technology, reservations and the airport services teams have developed and thoroughly tested our conversion,” shared Jeff Smisek, UAL’s president and chief executive officer as he discussed the company’s Q4 2011 results (Earnings Call Transcript available on SeekingAlpha.com).
According to Smisek, the platform is already integrated with continental.com, which will be re-branded as united.com and will be the company’s combined website.
“We have devoted significant training, staffing and technology resources to ensure the success of our conversion to Shares, which will take place in early March,” shared Smisek.
“Once we’ve completed the conversion of Shares, we will re-launch united.com, which will provide us with the right platform for innovation as we continue to develop new travel options and products that our customers will value and that will contribute to our bottom line,” he said.
Also, when the entity adopts Shares as its common reservations platform, agencies will interact with the new United using the same methods they use to interact with Continental’s Shares system.
UAL posted a narrower fourth-quarter net loss of $138 million compared with year-ago quarter’s $325 million.
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Sep 26, 2012 - Sep 27, 2012Mumbai, India
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