This articlewas in the Washington Post. The article concerns implementation issues in connection with combining Continental and United airlines. The article does a nice job of highlighting the many implementation issues spanning all functional areas of an organization. What are the main issues that such organizations need to take into consideration when joining forces? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages that might come about from such a merger?

Satari Topic: Week 7 Discussion File Edit View History Bookmarks Window Help I washingtonpostcom At United Airlines, they called it the \"cutover.\" It was the final and most difcult piece of the puzzle in the merger with Continental Airlines, and it involved combining two complex passenger reservations systems. But some United passengers referred to what happened in March as something else: chaos. They complained about delayed ights, sluggish customer service response times and rude treatment by overwhelmed ticket agents struggling to learn a new computer system. A closer look at the cutover and its repercussions suggests that no airline is immune to a systems failure that could affect your next ight and that beyond a common-sense strategy or two, passengers can't do much to prepare for a meltdown. On another level, United's switch is also a case study in how careful planning by the airline's customer service team averted a disaster that could have inconvenienced even more passengers. ADVERTISING "is , Thu Feb 24 9208 PM E The Navigator: In UnitedContinental airline merger, a chaotic computer... E Homework Help 7 Q&A from Online Tutors , Course Hero I IIVIHVI ABORTION ACCESS Pass The Women's llealth Protection Am TAKE ACHON Most Read Lifestyle 1 Perspective Now is the time to remember what Fox's own lawyers said about Tucker Carlson Some conservative media hosts ridiculed Biden's warnings of a d Satari File Edit View History Bookmarks Window Help . ' Thu Feb 24 9:08 PM 0 V I washingtonpostcom Topic: Week 7 Discussion E The Navigator: In UnitedContinental airline merger, a chaotic computer... E Homework Heip 7 Q&A from Oniine Tutors , Course Hero The lead players in United's IT drama are two reservations systems that handle Carolyn HEX: Partner burned out by ' . ' . depressed girlfriend's 'caregiver functlons from ticketlng to loyalty programs. United's was called Apollo; committee' Continental's was Shares. United chose to use Shares shortly after merging with Continental, and late on the evening of March 2, almost a year and a half after the consolidation became ofcial, it completed the process of combining Apollo and Shares by copying the data on both systems, backing it up and then msmnzo sv NAvqu consolidating it. Big clay That part of the cutover went relatively smoothly. But on March 3, United tomorrow? customers awoke to a new Web site, and the old Continental site now pointed to www.united.com. And airport agents powering up their workstations were Try ou r greeted by a Shares log-in screen, a system that half of them hadn't used in a Ch i I d ren's real-world setting. Sleep with M Iatonin Adding to the confusion, United made other, unrelated policy changes at about e the same time. Those included tightening several rules for its frequent iers, who also tend to be its most vocal customers. Lower-tier elite-level passengers could no longer get upgraded to United's premium economy class when they reserved their tickets; they had to wait until the day of their ight to secure their Economy Plus seat assignments. Their free-checkedbaggage allowance Stay informed with your free trial to The Washington Post. 9 eoiaeiwem 6 Safari File Edit View History Bookmarks Window Help ' Thu Feb 24 9:08 PM U V I washingtonpostcom Topic: Week 7 Discussion 8 The Navigator: In UnitedContinental airline merger, a chaotic computer... E Homework Help 7 Q&A from Oniine Tutors 7 Course Hero their Economy Plus seat assignments. Their free-checkedbaggage allowance was also cut from two bags to one, generating more complaints to United's call centers and straining the airline's resources. 5 ............ i unnatural-Innova- a nmlllmmlllill III-ll- mun-mun: 9' ' Big ' ZARHEES Try our Children's Sleep with Melatonin Shares began to slow under the weight of the extra transaction requests, leading to more timeouts and system freezes than United had anticipated. Call volumes surged from 1.5 million the week before the cutover to 2 million the week of the switch, exceeding what managers had planned for by 10 percent. \"Handle\" times the length of time it takes to resolve a customer inquiry jumped 120 percent. Answering inquiries took an average of 20 1,200 M Safari File Edit History Bookmarks Window Help Q 8 Thu Feb 24 9:08 PM G washingtonpost.com C + 88 Topic: Week 7 Discussion x The Navigator: In United-Continental airline merger, a chaotic computer... Homework Help - Q&A from Online Tutors - Course Hero minutes as many agents wrestled with their new Shares interface. That, in turn, lengthened the call wait queue. Some customers hung up after spending what Latest episode they said was hours on hold. Russia's assault on Ukraine John Buckholz, a planning manager in Ogdensburg, N.Y., spent more than Listen 33:26 three hours on the phone trying to cash in a gift certificate, which involves Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you've come to expect from more steps and usually takes longer on Shares than it did on Apollo. "There was the newsroom of The Post - for your ears. no way to talk to someone who had any power to do anything," Buckholz Share complained. "Anyone I talked to was extremely short with me and just told me AdChoices [ there was nothing I could do." A D X Give Everyday A4 hope to a neighbor immune support in need so your whole Donate now > > family can thrive. olunteers of America 9 ZARBEE'S NATURALS mmune Support ZARBEE'S Sergei Shevchuk, a research scientist in San Francisco who tried to phone the elderberry GUMMIES FEB 24 4 O W TSafari File Edit History Bookmarks Window Help Q 8 Thu Feb 24 9:08 PM d Safari File Edit View History Bookmarks Window Help . "6' ThuFeb24 9:09PM 0 V I washingtonpostxom Topic: Week 7 Discussion 8 The Navigator: In Unitedeontinental airline merger, a chaotic computer... E Homework Help 7 Q&A from Onllne Tutors 7 Course Hero United passengers could have protected themselves by having a printout of their itinerary with their alphanumeric record locator number always a good M 5 Send it for e-signature idea. That way, if their itinerary disappeared into the electronic ether, an agent with Acrobat, would have a starting point for nding it. And they could have packed a sense of humor. When a whole row of computers shuts down spontaneously, what is there to do except laugh? But many passengers didn't know about the cutover, or its probable implications, until it was too late. United says that the situation has calmed and that it's taking steps to keep things going smoothly. Between now and June, the carrier is hiring another 400 contact center workers, adding to the staff of 6,300 employees who answer passenger inquiries via phone and email. Its all-important handle times have been cut in half, to an average of 10 minutes, which is almost back to normal. (The goal is closer to eight minutes.) No one knows when the next airline IT crisis might are up or which airline it will hit. A combined US Airways-American Airlines, which some industry watchers are predicting, is a likely candidate. But if the madness aficting United in March has taught passengers anything, it's that there are some airline problems you just can't plan for