USAir gets a lot of flack these days, most of it deserved, and probably won’t be around much longer. Still, I’m pretty fed up with them right now and need anoutlet to vent my frustration.

I can’t claim that they were the first airline to install the online check-in (print boarding pass) functionality, but theirs was the first I discovered. As someone who hates standing in line more than perhaps anything else on God’s green earth, this was a huge revelation for me. Being able to select a seat, print a boarding pass, and then go directly to the gate is easily the best thing that’s happened to air travel in my lifetime. (Even better than Orbitz.) It was too easy… just print, and go. What I have unfortunately discovered this morning, now for the second time, is that their system is impossibly unforgiving. With one tiny mistake, the system completely locks up and the user is left stranded, unsure of what to do or where to go to get help.

The first time this happened to me was a few years ago. I was in the Sonoma Valley in California, and didn’t want to wait in line at the San Francisco Airport, so I bartered my way into the hotel’s business office before departing to print my boarding pass. I went through the process, used their handy “print” button, and was all set. Except not really — a printing error occured. At this point, the site had already taken me out of the boarding pass print mode, and
I couldn’t get it back (the back button brought an expired page.) Now, I had no boarding pass, wasn’t even positive I had really checked in, and was completely panicked. Worse off than that, there was nothing on the website that even bothered to help me with this scenario. I eventually called USAir, and they told me I’d have to check in again once I got to the airport. (Luckily for me the lines were slim when I arrived.)
This morning, I went to check in for both myself and a friend who is traveling with me. I got to the page with both of our names on it, and check boxes next to each name. There were no instructions at all, so I checked my name and hit”select seats”. In my mind, I’d select my seat, go back to the main page, select her seat, and then print both boarding passes. This is not what happened. I selected my seat, hit “continue”, and went directly to my boarding pass. Panic began to strike once again. Remembering my last encounter,I was sure to print my pass right then and there before I had the chance tolose it. Still, no boarding pass for my companion. After trying a few different ways to get hers to come up, I closed out of the browser and started from scratch. I got as far as selecting her seat, but when I tried to print the boarding passI got this message:

Your reservation is in the system, however, we are unable to complete your check-in at this time. On day of departure, please proceed to one of our self-service kiosks at the airport or see a Customer Service Representative at the airportto complete your check-in.
The good news here is that in two years they have improved their error messaging. Since Philadelphia International has an abundance of self-service kiosks (the next best thing to internet check-in), this shouldn’t be the end of the world.

HOWEVER, I now have a seat — a very desireable, first-row exit seat btw — that is, in all liklihood, going to be surrounded with strangers by the time I can get to the airport. This is not good news. If this plane is full and we have to sit apart because of this, I am going to be one ornery passenger thisevening.
I’ll admit that I know nothing about the backend systems that are needed to support this functionality; perhaps the system’s unforgiving nature is impossible to overcome. I’d like to sit here and say that USAir should rework the system so that one can have a bit more flexibility, but I fear preaching about something I know little about would be alltogether ignorant. There are, however, many measures the designers could take to make this experience far better.

At the very least, the system should be intuitive; clearer instructions and help screens are key. More importantly, however, would be to create confirmation screens before completing actions. A simple screen that said “Are you sure you only want to print one boarding pass? Any other passengers on this ticket will need to check in at the airport.”, which probably would not be all that difficult to implement, is really all they’d need to fix today’s issue. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who made this mistake before — after all, there were no visible instructions AT ALL.
Although it seems like a security issue to allow someone to print multiple boarding passes, in reality if a user doesn’t use the “print” button that the screen provides (use File > Print instead), one can print as many copies as they want. This is not rocket science — anyone with simple knowledge of computers can manage this. That said, why not allow a person to get back to their boarding pass even if they’ve already printed it? I can’t be the only one in the world who ever had a printing issue. Again, if this isn’t possible, some concise language explaining what to do if you have a printing problem would at least set the user’s mind at ease.

Obviously USAir has much larger issues to worry about right now than the usability of their online check-in, but the lack of clarity can’t be helping matters. The more people who check in online means the less people who are waiting in line at the check-in, which has been a bit of a problem for USAir in the news of late. Some minor changes online could make for big differences at the airport, and perhaps even help create happier customers, something USAir desperately
needs.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2005 at 7:24 pm and is filed under web UI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.