Oops - QF system cacks itself - Big mob!!
 

Well folks, the move to the Amadeus GDS has certainly been a bad one for QF.

Over the last 2 days, their computer reservations system has mysteriously lost most of April's SYD OOL flights.

Passengers have been rebooked to the next day by the system on unsuitable flights and at most one flight SYD OOL and vv is showing (or a connection over Brisbane) with naturally the majority of discount seats well and truly shot.

What a coup de grace for DJ!! Even with their egg sucking dog of a web booking engine, they must be laughing their heads off.

The availability has been down for around 48 hours now, and right through NSW school holidays so the losses must now run into millions. I can almost feel the cold horror creeping through the veins of shareholders in Rat Inc.

This just goes to show you what happens when you let bean-counters select a reservations system. The deal being signed while most senior operational staff were in the US at a conference.

Amadeus is a hateful Eurocrud system, suited only to Airlines running out of a single hub or max 2 (ie: LH MUC and FRA) with little or no connecting services and low volume over the routes they service. It is totally unsuitable for an airline like QF with multiple hubs and large numbers of flights over some city pairs.

Some heads isa gonna roll at 50 Franklin St.

This is probably the biggest display of ineptitude I have witnessed since the TN Univac 494 dumped 6 days of Christmas to save itself back in the mid '70s.

I hope none of you have QF shares.

Amazing that they hadnt informed their res staff on the floor either. Totally an amateur effort.

Oh well - lotsa cheapies coming up for April.

Best all

EWL:( :(

Ah, I see some of the old AN number crunchers & mentally challenged decision makers have found a new home!:rolleyes:

You can't beat the home brew, can you EWL? None of the "off the shelf" systems would ever work at AN without significant modification, but still they persisted in buying the rubbish, hoping against hope that someone with intelligence would modify it to justify all the perks they enjoyed at the contract signing.:}

Oh yes Buster

The BA checkin system - wasnt that a monumental disaster.

QF however are soldiering on with USAS Checkin for loco - a magnificent system that was introduced when I was res supervisor TN WNY and Cube is still running in he background for yield management.

How many mainframes does one airline need?

Best ditch Amateurdeus and go back to Qube.

In this day and age, the current debacle is a total disaster.

Best mate

EWL

But QF had some great people in their reservations units a while back.
All this new economics reform & "shareholder returns" B.S. has been a major failure over the past 10-15 years.
They get rid of the good (older) staff & employ kids, who make serious errors.
This is not restricted to their reservations facilities either.
They sure messed this one up.

Could be scary in 2004 and 2005 when USAS load control and FIND and QUBE checkin are replaced with Amadeus, let hope they do a better job with this one

Kwaj

The res units are still staffed by good people BUT they are not allowed to know anything anymore. Quickres has killed the knowledge base. Once there was a 2 week training course (I am talking TAARSANs 1 and 2) including a week of introduction into the culture of the Airline and it's history and a week of AIRIMP/SIPP input and computer training, followed by 2 weeks with Paddy hovering behind you and your school on the front line.

Now it is 2 days and away you go.

The same applies to Load control. I would be interested to know how many ground handling agents could get an aeroplane out on time with a manual trim sheet. Southern handler can most likely advise us of what level of training they have there. I know I could still drop a line after a short study of the sheet, as could anyone who ever did that daily. The only one I know who can still do it and is still in the game would be "dribbler" at DPO QF.

It would be interesting to know how many aircrew could comfortably pull a manual trim down.

QUBE is actually still running all reservations and inventory functions, so one must ask why QF invested in Amateurdeus in the first place.

May I humbly suggest that QF Aircrew scrub up on Loco before they cut over. The system sucks like a JT8D and I cant imagine checkin is any better.

Best all

EWL

I would suggest its more a case of human error within QF than anything to do with Amadeus. Give me Amadeus any day over that crap called Qube!

May I ask what part of Amadeus you work with WW?

The interface for Agents is a total shocker when one goes for direct access. Flifo is very unreliable and cumbersome. Availability sucks. Basically very unfriendly.

If any Agents on Sabre want to make their lives easier with QF availability displays, substitute the {change} key wih the cross of lorraine, and you bypass Amadeus and get availabiliy direct from Qube, where it is hosted. Six flight display rather than 3 and much more accurate class sensitive and connecting flight info.

Best regards

EWL

EWL,

Are you sure that someone didn't just press a few wrong buttons when trying to add the new SYD-OOL schedule to the system? Do the old flights have to be deleted first?
Problem seems to be fixed by now (Thu), the new schedule has a couple of daily 763 flights (are these the all economy 767s?) and the rest 717s. Interesting one of the 717 flights only operates on Tue,Thu,Sat,Sun, but I can't find what sector this aircraft does on Mon,Wed,Fri. Any ideas? Also Mel-Ool will have 5 x 717 flights/day as from late March.

:confused:

No clue there HOBAY

It would seem the threat of an all Y on leisure destinations is coming to fruition. I have also seen all Y 733s on SYDOOL so it seems to be a sealed deal.

It seems the rat is becoming selectively Virginesque.

Regards

EWL

EWL
I work with native Amadeus which is more like Taarsan was than either Qantam or Qube. Availability is not hosted in Qube it is from Amadeus. All pnrs have a mirror pnr created in Qube which is where the departure control system gets its info from. This is only until the new dcs system is implemented.
LDP is only used for domestic flights at this time, which is why there is still a little bit of USAS around.

EWL -
I think the Sched Change course I did with Qantam was about 21 days in duration - many years ago.
One of the better systems (is) was (Sita) GabII; light on some things but great on management reports etc.;
Quite user friendly once you got the hang of it & had great facilities.

Hobay-
The 4 x a week (Tu, Th, Sa, Su) 717 flight comes in from ROK-SYD then does SYD-OOL-SYD. One those days a SYD a/c goes up to ROK (dep SYD 1500). This is to cycle the a/c for maintinence. On Mo We and Fri the a/c goes SYD-TSV-SYD (dep SYD 1445).

Kwaj

Gabriel II is the best system I have ever used apart from Taarsan II.

Eenie weenie migrated to that after TN lost their happy thoughts about us and were actively tracking all our data.

Best all

EWL

TAARSAN II was so good that when training for it 'on-line' through TAARSAN I, if one cracked the sh!ts and typed in something like "fark you", TAARSAN II replied with something like "now, now, don't be like that!" :}

I knew a lot of the programmers that worked on Taarsan II Claret, and they had extremely good senses of humour for their genre.

I was on the 1st trainers course working 1700 to 0100 as they couldnt run the 494 and 1182 together at peak load times. It was interesting to say the least as we were still picking up errors and exceptions that hadnt been found. After 4 nights everyone paired off and did something totally primal with a member of the opposite sex just to retain some semblance of normality. It was very hard work, but the end system once it was switched on was a beaut. The mainframe is still around and may still be in use for QF Hols. Ut is definitely still in use with USAS checkin for the time being anyway.

You can keep your cheap and nasty IPARS systems for mine.

Cathay and Dragon and a host of Chinese carriers seem to be the only ones still delivering the signature 5 alpha numeric relocs these days.

Best

EWL

EWL
There hasnt been any USAS checkin in the QF network for years now. USAS checkin changed to the Qube dcs system from memory the Easter weekend after the Taarsan/Qantam cutover to Qube. I agree that Taarsan was just the easiest most logical system to use and its a great shame its still not around. However if losing some SYDOOL availability for a couple of days is the most major thing that has happened since Amadeus then I would call that very successful given the potential for things to go wrong in such a large project.

Must have cost them a motza though WW - I would be interested to have a play with the Amadeus base system to see what she can do. The interface with other GDS systems doe need improvement though. Availability displays over multiple sector port pairs on a class specific basis are atrocious.

I have been courted by Amadeus (and Gal) on several occasions,but am very happy with Sabre. Very user friendly database for an IPARS system so I will stay there for the time being.

The web based Sabre evoya seems to have most of the bugs removed now too and is nice and fast on ADSL.

Constant change is the way in this industry.

Best regards

EWL

Not writing it off at all Noodle.

However, the decision o purchase was taken when all of the QF Airport operational managers were at a conference in he US,

The system is fine for what it is, and that is a hosting database designed for Euro carriers with minimal hubbing and very limited flights over particular sectors.

That is fine even for BA who seem to be a mover and shaker in this purchase, but it is currently totally inadequate for a carrier such as QF with up to six ways to get from A to B over multiple hubs and mini hubs.

There needs to be a significant amount of development before Amadeus comes anywhere near Qube or Qantam standards, and they are all lightyears behind Univac based systems.

Their day may well come though. I hope it is soon.

Best regards.

EWL

FWIW

My eldest daughters mates father and his mate spent some time in the US some moons ago, writing the Sabre software code and it was I believe the grandfather of them all.

Aussies have a lot to be proud of as well as answer for :p

EWL what was/is it like.