MIAMI – This week the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways will be complete, and a new American Airlines will take flight.
"We are now the largest airline in the world," Marilyn DeVoe, vice president of American Airlines for Miami, told Local 10 News.
With a whopping 6,700 flights per day, the new American Airlines will be 30 percent larger. It has only taken two years to merge the two into a mega-airline, but the most daunting task is switching U.S. Airway's reservations system over to American's software system. That happens Saturday.
Recently, several airline reservation system glitches have paralyzed flights and grounded passengers, but DeVoe said American is ready.
"We have over 50,000 employees that have been trained on over a million hours of training," she said. "We have airports that will be overstaffed for the next couple of weeks."
American also has 24 command centers established to handle any problems with a passenger name record, better known as a PNR.
"We have conducted six full-scale tests on over 5 million mock PNRs, so we're pretty confident that it works," DeVoe said. "We have tested on 30 regional flights, really, all the systems and procedures."
The last U.S. Airways flight to arrive at Miami international Airport is scheduled for Friday night. After that, vendors will take down all of the U.S. Airways signage inside and outside the airport.
Joe O'Rourke is a longtime U.S. Airways passenger who is not sentimental over the change.
"I'm not worried about the ticket costs as much," O'Rourke said. "Competition will keep that down, but the quality of service is what my biggest concern is."
O'Rourke said it's his hope that service will improve with the merger.
The rebranding will take a little more time, but DeVoe said all U.S. Airways planes will be repainted by the middle of next year.
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