Oh man.

We got some disturbing news at work yesterday. But first, let me explain something about all travel websites and agencies.

Each uses something called a Global Reservation System (GDS). There are five main ones: Sabre, WorldSpan, Apollo, Galileio, Focalpoint and Amadeus. (Continental uses Shares, which we are being taught soon, but they're the only ones that do) I know the first two very well, and the first five of these options are similar. Amadeus on the other hand is WAYYYY out in left field.

To put this in perspective, the first five are actually run by US-based airlines. Sabre is used by American, US Airways and Alaskan Air. Amadeus is made and used by Air freaking France.

We use the GDS that our company has bought for our account constantly every day. The formats are ridiculously confusing for someone that has no training. And we're apparently discussing switching from what we currently have to freaking Amadeus. There was a collective groan and protest when we were told. Nobody in this office knows how to use Amadeus very well, and it's not similar to anything that we DO know.

I'll give you some basic commands for availability, which is probably the most basic stuff...

Sabre would read:

101JUNMSPDFW11A-CO

Worldspan would read:

A01JUNMSPDFW11A-CO

See? That's similar. God only knows what the Amadeus command would be. By the way, that's availability from Minneapolis to Dallas on the first of June at 11 AM on Continental. :)

More background--each reservation system charges by how many commands it's asked to do in a 24 hour period (in a nutshell). So my account must be getting a heck of an offer for the Amadeus system.

But we have over 300 computers; brand new great big with huge monitors, etc. Very expensive computers. Yeah, and they would all have to be reprogrammed. Not to mention training cost for all of us, the possible down time that we would experience when everyone is in training, etc. They may come out better in a few years after all the start up costs, but is it really worth it? I don't think so.

So it's very possible that my work-world is going to be turned upside down. *stomps foot* I don't WANNA use a new reservation system, I wanna use what I know! I'm not scared of learning new things, but my God! It's AMADEUS!

Ugh...

last - next

Missed These?

Hospital Stay for Dad
S-L-O-W-E-R
Long time, no write
Soul Sucker
What the F*(&^ is Fibromyalgia?