US Airways reservation system glitch strands passengers
The IT systems integration of US Airways and America West has gone fairly well overall. Until Sunday.
The Associated Press is reporting that the long awaited consolidation of the computerized reservation systems stumbled on Sunday. US Airways, which merged with America West in 2005, had run two separate reservation systems. The reservation systems faltered as US Airways tried to merge them early Sunday.
Airline passengers at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport found themselves waiting in airport terminals for up to an hour and a half to check in when US Airways' automated kiosks did not work, said Phil Gee, spokesman for the Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc. Delays also occurred at airports in Philadelphia and Boston.
According to the Charlotte Observer airport lines are improving tonight.
When the kiosk crashed customers had to wait hours in some cases to talk to ticket agents. US Airways had talked up its integration savvy when it was wooing Delta late last year. Delta shot down US Airways' acquisition attempt.
Meanwhile, the stumble at US Airways comes just weeks after JetBlue's big customer service debacle. Some of the problems at JetBlue were also IT related.
Like other companies airlines can have IT headaches. The big difference: When systems crash at airlines it's much more visible.