United Airlines To Introduce Internet Booking
<H1> United Airlines To Introduce Internet Booking</H1>By Mary Ann McNulty
<I>Chicago </I>- As an outgrowth of its United Connection disk-based booking product, United Airlines plans to offer Internet booking within the next few months.
"Over time, United's five diskettes will be converted into an Internet-based system where the data will be housed centrally, and we'll pipe it down to you," said United senior vice president and chief information officer Andy Studdert.
Speaking at <I>BTN</I>'s Executive Travel Forum held here last month, Studdert added that United "will continue to support the United Connection product."
Despite the move to the Internet, Studdert contends the medium must mature to truly become a "net enhancer of time and value. The Internet today is a net destroyer of time."
For instance, callers can get schedule information more quickly by calling United's 800 number than they can by using a computer. Until that changes, Studdert said, don't expect mass conversion to the Internet.
"I'm a little worried that we're taking a 25-year-old technology based on the defense department, government and academia, and saying, 'if we put some perfume on this, we can package it and sell it as the latest technology.' "
United also is building an intranet; however, Studdert said, no one is allowed to put up forms until they detail plans to remove the paper process the forms are designed to replace.
In general, technology is moving so quickly that it is out of sync with business, Studdert said. "If I were emperor king of the technology world, I would say no new projects, no new technology, no nothing for six months because technology is outpacing our ability to absorb it," he said. "I'm not saying that technology isn't critical, but the pace of change is causing us to short circuit how we implement a lot of this stuff, and we're missing a lot of the fundamentals."
This situation causes "guerilla programming" and programs built outside the scope of a company's technology arm. For instance, it is causing companies to buy products from outside vendors who falsely promise the product will be self-maintaining and can sit on the network without causing problems.
The pace of technological developments is likewise proving troublesome to long-term planning. For example, when United began developing United Connection more than two years ago, the Internet was not considered a primary means of distributing software. But after Bill Gates reinvented Microsoft nine months ago by embracing the Internet, United-along with hundreds of other companies-had to rethink its position.
Trying to put recent technology developments into perspective for travel decision makers, Studdert said that as they think about technology and networks, they should think about unlimited bandwidth-and the cost of that would be free.
"Now, neither of those things will happen, but for the sake of planning, I'm betting United Airlines that I can get data anywhere in the world at very little cost," he said. "That's a shift in many companies that must be focused on and addressed."
As for now, the cost of technology continues to drop. Studdert said he is replacing United's data center for less than $8 million. Five years ago, it would have cost $80 million.
Studdert also advised participants not to accept the MIS department's or vendor's inability to deliver products on time. "Don't treat the technology people any differently than anybody else," he said. "They want to be treated differently; they want to be sacred. They say, 'you don't understand, it's really complex.' Don't buy that."
One technology that is working just fine, Studdert said, is United's electronic ticketing product. Sixty percent of all tickets booked through United's reservation centers are now e-tickets, and 30 percent of United's lift is now done through e-tickets.