All change for EZY at Stansted
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All change for EZY at Stansted
Having won their court battle with Navitaire over copyright infringement of OpenSkies, Easyjet have decided to set up their new Common User check-in system at Stansted. The program that runs as part of e-Res. (easyres) will be put in place with the aim to "Go-Live" on Monday 21st November.
Swissport, who handle Easyjet currently use their own departure control system which was developed by Damarel Systems. The system has no direct link with e-Res and so each Passenger Name List has to be downloaded.
There are however some fatal floors with this system that have not yet been resolved. While e-Res may function satisfactorily at Luton, there is likely to be a great deal of confusion at Stansted.
1) Gate numbers and boarding times CANNOT be printed
onto the Boarding Card.
2) There is no facility to "CLOSE" a flight for check-in. It relies on the check-in operator, who may be checking up to 10 flights in at one time to be a good "time keeper".
3) During peak times the system becomes very unstable, often crashing, or freezing for several minutes at a time.
4) No way of informing the check-in operator of any delays of flight disruptions. Therefore most passengers won't find out that their flight is delayed until they're stuck at the departure Gate.
Why try to fix something if it's not broken???????
Swissport, who handle Easyjet currently use their own departure control system which was developed by Damarel Systems. The system has no direct link with e-Res and so each Passenger Name List has to be downloaded.
There are however some fatal floors with this system that have not yet been resolved. While e-Res may function satisfactorily at Luton, there is likely to be a great deal of confusion at Stansted.
1) Gate numbers and boarding times CANNOT be printed
onto the Boarding Card.
2) There is no facility to "CLOSE" a flight for check-in. It relies on the check-in operator, who may be checking up to 10 flights in at one time to be a good "time keeper".
3) During peak times the system becomes very unstable, often crashing, or freezing for several minutes at a time.
4) No way of informing the check-in operator of any delays of flight disruptions. Therefore most passengers won't find out that their flight is delayed until they're stuck at the departure Gate.
Why try to fix something if it's not broken???????
Last edited by TotalBeginner; 14th Nov 2005 at 18:08.
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Why try to fix something if it's not broken???????
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Given my experience of Swissport at STN I doubt they could manage with a pen and paper. Worst check in I've ever experienced anywhere.
As for e-res, been up and running in NCL for several months and no real problems encountered. Certainly no worse that previous system.
As for e-res, been up and running in NCL for several months and no real problems encountered. Certainly no worse that previous system.
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The problem at Stansted is that there are 3 departure satellites. Gates 1-19, 20-39, 41-60 and 81-88. Once you've boarded the train for gates 1-19 or 20-39 there is no way back. We get at least 10-15 passengers a day who despite having the correct gate number on their boarding card, get off at the wrong stop or board the train in error. In most cases they end up missing their flight because they have to wait 30minutes for security to escort them.
Heaven only knows what will happen when passengers are handed a boarding card at check-in and are not told where they should be headed!
I can just hear it now "But it always goes from gate 6"
Heaven only knows what will happen when passengers are handed a boarding card at check-in and are not told where they should be headed!
I can just hear it now "But it always goes from gate 6"
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Heaven only knows what will happen when passengers are handed a boarding card at check-in and are not told where they should be headed!
I can't really understand why you are making such a fuss about this aspect, maybe you ought to visit LHR and see how late gates are assigned to flights.
Maybe time to stop resisting the change and get on the programme. All it needs is a clear instruction to wait in the main departure lounge and then proceed to the gate when its allocated.
"Await the gate allocation on the FIDS" eh...
On many occasions I have sat waiting for flights at the satellite to hear multiple gate change announcements for a single flight over a period of around one hour - An Iceland Express incident springs to mind when there were FOUR gate changes that I was aware of.
I don't work in the industry, but just cannot comprehend how the airport gets itself into such a tangle.
Perhaps it's a new passenger fitness regime!!
On many occasions I have sat waiting for flights at the satellite to hear multiple gate change announcements for a single flight over a period of around one hour - An Iceland Express incident springs to mind when there were FOUR gate changes that I was aware of.
I don't work in the industry, but just cannot comprehend how the airport gets itself into such a tangle.
Perhaps it's a new passenger fitness regime!!
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I don't work in the industry, but just cannot comprehend how the airport gets itself into such a tangle.
Stand availability is a constraint on the handling of aircraft and multiple gate changes (a gate being the portal to the aircraft on the stand) suggest that the person managing stand allocation is having to move away from the plan and allocate stands on a dynamic (on the hoof) basis.
There could be many superficial causes on the day, but the root cause is usually the physical lack of stands compared to the overall number of movements.
If you investigate the use of stands at LAX (which I have done), you will find that there is a surfeit of stands over movements and these type of rapid changes are far less likley to occur.
Notwithstanding this, I still don't' see the big issue with not knowing the stand (as a pax) at check in - personally, I'd far rather have a specific seat allocation.
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I'd far rather have a specific seat allocation.
The staff would rather allocate seats
So why not?? Easyjet claim that it's because it will slow down the turn-around, but I fail to see how. It saves all those silly ABCD announcements. Pax in rows 14-26 either board first, or use the rear steps, it's quite simple.
Ryanair don't because they operate a manual check-in system and it would take too long. But lets face it, if the facility is already there, how long does it take to say "window or aisle"?
Last edited by TotalBeginner; 18th Nov 2005 at 09:30.
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TotalBeginner , I will deal with each of your points in turn :
1. Correct - Gate numbers (and boarding times) cannot be printed onto the boarding cards at the moment. This is currently in development, and in the meantime it will be a case of using a pen.
2. This statement regarding the 'closing' of flights is not true. In fact once a flight has closed there is even less chance of it being re-opened than at the moment.
3. Do you have any evidence of this? If so it would be useful to pass onto the various IT support companies to determine if it is a local problem at STN (CUS/MUSE related), a SITA problem, or an EZY problem.
4. The system does have a facility for this, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with it to know how this is accessed. I will endevour to find out.
The "Go-Live" date is not Monday, and it will not be an early morning change-over. The change will occur once all 1st wave a/c have departed, and the situation will be monitored very closely in case a switch-back to L-DCS is required. This will be perfectly possible as PNLs will continue to be downloaded for the near future.
Whilst this system is different to what you may be used to, it will provide benefits (and probaby some problems) - but please don't knock it until you've tried it.
1. Correct - Gate numbers (and boarding times) cannot be printed onto the boarding cards at the moment. This is currently in development, and in the meantime it will be a case of using a pen.
2. This statement regarding the 'closing' of flights is not true. In fact once a flight has closed there is even less chance of it being re-opened than at the moment.
3. Do you have any evidence of this? If so it would be useful to pass onto the various IT support companies to determine if it is a local problem at STN (CUS/MUSE related), a SITA problem, or an EZY problem.
4. The system does have a facility for this, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with it to know how this is accessed. I will endevour to find out.
The "Go-Live" date is not Monday, and it will not be an early morning change-over. The change will occur once all 1st wave a/c have departed, and the situation will be monitored very closely in case a switch-back to L-DCS is required. This will be perfectly possible as PNLs will continue to be downloaded for the near future.
Whilst this system is different to what you may be used to, it will provide benefits (and probaby some problems) - but please don't knock it until you've tried it.
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This statement regarding the 'closing' of flights is not true. In fact once a flight has closed there is even less chance of it being re-opened than at the moment
In terms of flight disruptions, I stand corrected. ETD's can be viewed, but only when interrogated by the CSA. So unless a pax asks, they will be none the wiser. I think there is a facility to enter a RES comment that would appear with the .U command, but this is useless in common user check-in because the CSA does not assign to a particular flight.
Also discovered today that Manifest Comments in the reservation do not appear when a pax is checked-in. It works perfectly well in passenger check-in, but not common user check-in. This information is intended for the CSA so would be useful if it appeared, or at least there was an indication that a comment was present in the booking. Such as an * after the PNR locator, As in passenger check-in.
I'm not being negative about e-Res simply because I'm used to L-DCS and am against any kind of change. I've used many different check-in systems including OpenSkies, CODECO and STARcheck. I just can't help but think that the e-Res common user program was only created in this way to try and make it look different from OpenSkies, without much thought as to how it would perform.
Last edited by TotalBeginner; 18th Nov 2005 at 00:07.
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Well e-res went live on the 21st of November as I predicted, and here we are 13th March, still waiting for departure gates and boarding times to be printed on the boarding card.
Last week I had 14 Italians miss the NAP flight because they boarded the transit system, and when they went to look at their boarding cards.... No gate number! Not knowing when to get off, they disembarked at the last station and found they were stuck. Security staff were inundated and so couldn't collect them for another 40min, by which time the flight had departed.
I'm sorry but this is disgusting. It's all well and good to say check the info screens, great a LHR and LGW, but as I said before at STN if you go the wrong way, there's no way back!!
We've also discovered that baggage tags will not print if there is more than one first name, or if the name contains a character such as an apostrophe. So nearly every other passenger has to have a name change performed at the check-in desk. It's so time consuming and totally unprofessional!!!!!
The system sucks!!!
Easyjet should stop being such cheapskates!!!! and pay for a proper reservation system. Navitaire's OpenSkies is a great package, and works perfectly for the other low cost airlines!!! Ryanair seem perfectly happy with it, and all this talk of corrupt data is total cr@p!!
Last week I had 14 Italians miss the NAP flight because they boarded the transit system, and when they went to look at their boarding cards.... No gate number! Not knowing when to get off, they disembarked at the last station and found they were stuck. Security staff were inundated and so couldn't collect them for another 40min, by which time the flight had departed.
I'm sorry but this is disgusting. It's all well and good to say check the info screens, great a LHR and LGW, but as I said before at STN if you go the wrong way, there's no way back!!
We've also discovered that baggage tags will not print if there is more than one first name, or if the name contains a character such as an apostrophe. So nearly every other passenger has to have a name change performed at the check-in desk. It's so time consuming and totally unprofessional!!!!!
The system sucks!!!
Easyjet should stop being such cheapskates!!!! and pay for a proper reservation system. Navitaire's OpenSkies is a great package, and works perfectly for the other low cost airlines!!! Ryanair seem perfectly happy with it, and all this talk of corrupt data is total cr@p!!
