United today announced the airline will equip its customer service representatives in the company’s U.S.-based hubs with Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, enabling agents to meet customers’ needs more quickly while having access to additional operational information at their fingertips.
United will begin distributing the devices to its more than 6,000 hub-based customer service representatives next year. The iPhones will enable agents to assist customers who have checked into their flights with several pre-departure actions, including printing boarding passes and baggage tags anywhere in the airport. Customer service representatives will also be able to assist customers with alternate flight options, helping employees at customer service locations provide additional attention to those with more complex needs.
Future enhancements will include tools to provide full check-in capabilities in airport lobbies and the ability to offer customers much of the same functionality as traditional airport kiosks.
“Our employees told us they needed better tools to serve our customers, especially during severe weather and busier travel times,” said Jon Roitman, United’s senior vice president of airport operations, in a statement. “We have seen great success with the custom-made tools on the iPhone 6 Plus and believe expanding the use of a smart phone device with other applications is a great investment in our employees.”
The deployment of the iPhone 6 Plus to United’s hub customer service representatives follows the airline’s distribution of iPhones to flight attendants last June and iPads to pilots in August 2011.
Source: United Airlines
MacDailyNews Take: More iPhones for United employees!
SEE ALSO:
United Airlines to deploy 23,000 Apple iPhone 6 Plus units to flight attendants – December 10, 2014
United Airlines woos fliers to Newark with Apple iPads everywhere – November 7, 2014
United Airlines delivers inflight movies and TV to iPhones, iPads, iPod touch; Android, other also-rans not supported – March 12, 2014
“We have seen great success with the custom-made tools on the iPhone 6 Plus and believe expanding the use of a smart phone device with other applications is a great investment in our employees.”
I wonder if IBM had anything to do with this? This could be really great news for the Mac as well.
Why are they giving them an old phone?
Good question. I’ve got to believe they meant the 6S Plus. Maybe just lazy typing by the story writer.
Price. Most companies don’t care about making a fashion statement, they need the best bang hardware for the buck. Cook has always attempted to get the most mileage out of a hardware run, but it’s pretty obvious that selling consumers last year’s phone in a juvenile plastic case is a bad bargain. United would be happy to buy last year’s phone with no modifications to design at all, just get the price right.
I would think that for an airline agent, who needs to see tables of time, flights, gates, etc., and possibly share the screen with the customer, that the iPad would have been a better tool. Just goes to show the problem that the iPad has competing with phablets, where 5.5″ screens are “good enough”.
It’s the older iPhone 6 Plus. The official United press release mentions the A8 chip, not the A9 used in the iPhone 6S Plus. I’d assume United prefers the proven technology of the older model and took a long time to develop and test the software to be deployed on the phones.