United is Combining Computer Systems — Again.

United is combining computer systems again, and this time the legacy United system wins!

UnitedCargo.com will combine both United and former Continental flights onto one system on December 1.

United Cargo will transition all our customer accounts and cargo capacity onto the legacy United system effective December 1.

And this actually matters to you, even if you don’t ship things with United Cargo (which most readers of this blog certainly do not).

Airline cargo websites often display different and more accurate flight status information, the United website was especially good for this.

In the event of irregular operations, the airline might tell you the passenger that the cause is weather-related (and thus you’re owed very little consideration) but the United Cargo site would actually cite a specific operational reason for the delay. Having that information in hand could be leveraged for better re-accommodation or for lodging costs during an overnight delay.

And the good news here is that rather than taking the feature away from customers, they’ve decided to move all of the old Continental flights onto the existing United system.

I just wish they had taken that same approach with their passenger service system!

(HT: loyal reader Matt)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. This integration of systems is delayed by 18mo, how much money was wasted on redundant systems? How much revenue is lost from the ineptitude?

    If total Cargo revenue was over $1.2B combined before the merge why is it under a billion now? Shareholders want to know why all major carriers are recording profits, UA is down over $130M through 3Q12. You can find it at Cargo, where only 4% of overall revenue is, but all of the revenue degradation.

    This new system is not going to fill the gaping holes in the revenue!

  2. @bigpicture – “Shareholders want to know why all major carriers are recording profits, ” American lost money in October

  3. AA not considered while under BK, sorry about your shares…back on task…the integration of systems will not solve the revenue lost.

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