United Airlines Hits Snag While Combining Reservation Systems

United Airlines, which completed the integration of United and Continental Airlines res systems over the weekend and hit some snags in the process, said that it is resolving the technical issues. But it was still asking agents and consumers to either use its website or hold off calling if travel is not in the next few days. United said on its website that it has been getting more calls than normal and has increased staffing in its call centers.

Combining the res systems of the now merged airlines was the last major change in that merger of the two airlines. In a letter to agencies, United said that its new system now supports the entire merged airline. The conversion process involved moving millions of reservations and re-establishing numerous communications links.

The airline said that there had been some problems but most have been resolved. GDS providers are currently updating United PNRs with new record locators. PNRs will receive a new record locator that will cross-reference with the previous one. As a reminder, customers will be able to check-in and travel using either their old or new record locator.

Some tickets are out of sync and might not reflect the most recent schedule changes or other information, which means they won’t work at a self service kiosk and customers might have to check in with a United representative. United said that its conversion to a single passenger service system was the single largest technology conversion in aviation history.

While some related technical issues caused airport delays on Saturday, by Sunday, the first full day of operations after the computer conversion, United achieved a domestic mainline on-time performance of 77.1 percent . That exceeds the on-time performance recorded on the same Sunday a year earlier. As of 2:45 p.m. CST Monday, the airline's domestic mainline on-time performance was 90.6 percent.