This Week 'IT Issues' Ground Delta Airlines' Flights (cnbc.com) 141
Delta Air Lines has been forced to cancel at least 150 flights, and expects to cancel even more. But "the IT department is working to rectify the situation as soon as possible," they tweeted Sunday -- more than four hours ago. Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike quotes CNBC:
Delta Air Lines U.S. domestic flights were grounded on Sunday evening due to automation issues, according to an advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration... "Delta teams are expeditiously working to fix a systems outage that has resulted in departure delays for flights on the ground," the airline said in the statement. "Flights in the air remain unaffected". [And their international flights were unaffected.]
Delta also grounded 2,000 flights last summer after a computer outage caused by a power outage in Atlanta. At the time Reuters reported that "Airlines will likely suffer more disruptions... because major carriers have not invested enough to overhaul reservations systems based on technology dating to the 1960s." And sure enough, just last week, another "IT issue" forced United Airlines to ground all their domestic flights.
Delta also grounded 2,000 flights last summer after a computer outage caused by a power outage in Atlanta. At the time Reuters reported that "Airlines will likely suffer more disruptions... because major carriers have not invested enough to overhaul reservations systems based on technology dating to the 1960s." And sure enough, just last week, another "IT issue" forced United Airlines to ground all their domestic flights.
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Maybe the guy supposed to do the antivirus patching couldnt get back from his holiday after the ban :)
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Alternate Facts are already dominating the narrative. People get held up by customs all the time. Liberals only start to care when they can blame Trump. They don't care about Ukranian grannies getting deported. They're oblivious.
Fall of an Empire (Score:1)
The first to go is the infrastructure as this empire rots from within.
Trump seems like an idiot (Score:2)
Why does it have to physically be a wall. Even 2000 years ago the Romans could build walls, it's not exactly high tech. Sensors, cameras, drones, patrol units, etc. are real 21st century technology. Gather information on the board and take action, not put a wall up that anyone with a ladder or ultralight aircraft can circumvent.
How many drug kingpins have pilots on their staff? Probably all of them.
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I still hope the 2006 film Idiocracy is only an amusing bit of entertainment and doesn't turn out to be prophetic. But my hope is pretty shaken.
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A physical wall (or high fence, which is fine) is important in 2 ways: it's a symbol that this is not the place to enter, and it stop people from driving in. Sure, some people will always find a way, no doubt, but not a steady stream of millions. Mostly, though it's the symbol: we're no longer ignoring immigration law.
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Why not pillars of light, Tribute in Light worked for the WTC memorial instead of rebuilding. Or so they say.
Or we could not waste effort on building ineffective symbols. A very large portion of the US-Canada border is posted, at least the part on land.
Don't a large number of illegal immigration enter over water, it's hard to put a fence in the ocean. Luckily we have a professional Coast Guard to do the job that a fence cannot do.
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It doesn't have to be perfect to help, is the point. Especially to help say "turn around, you're not welcome".
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Or you could put up signs and posts that aren't disruptive to wildlife and property owners in the region and save taxpayers billions of dollars. It seems very ham-fisted and ineffective, it's indirectly my money so I feel like I should complain. (my representatives are all Democrats, so while I've contacted them I doubt they'll be able to alter matters any)
If we're looking for symbols, maybe Trump could tweet about his views on immigration, and assume that most Mexicans read his tweets.
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Seems like you're really reaching for a reason not to have a wall. And it won't be "ineffective" - walls have helped to bolster the border security on nations for millennia. The idea that they're "ineffective" is farcical. No defensive measure by itself is ever adequate, and that's fine, it's the collection of such that works.
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This is the 21st century, not millennia ago.
Numerous historic examples of large walls covering large territories that were not effective in stopping raids, soldiers or even refugees. If there is money to be made for a coyote to bring people into the US from Mexico, they'll find a way. It will be easy, you'll see.
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Do you have a lock on your front door? It's only even addresses the single most obvious path in, and it does nothing to stop a determined robber. But I'd call it "effective", because you start with the most obvious path. A wall will keep people from driving in. That's a big deal.
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Is a false analogy supposed to be proof or even evidence of something? Speak plainly. I will not chase this strawman.
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The most straightforward way into your house is the door(s). Locking them is useful, even though there are many other ways into your house, the door can be kicked in, the lock can likely be opened with a "bump key", and so on. You still want a lock on your front door.
The most straightforward way into the country illegally is to drive across the border (well, be driven by a coyote). Blocking that is useful, even though there are many other ways into the country. You still want a wall, fence, or similar p
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Dude, that's not even my house, you broke into Mr Strawman's house and he's pissed.
Flying, driving, walking, climbing a ladder, without a way to detect incursions it's pointless. A barrier that I can hide behind while I dig, cut or climb my way through is not a effective. On the other hand travel over the remote parts of the board is very difficult terrain, and border agents have many miles to pick some one up before they will be able to reach a populated area and slip away. It's naive to think that crossin
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without a way to detect incursions it's pointless
Who is suggesting that the wall would be the only defense? It's an effective part of securing the border. I don't get why you have a problem with that. Any one system can be defeated by some. Defense in depth is what changes "some" to "almost none". It will never be none, of course; heck, people make it across the DMZ.
If someone entered the country illegally and a camera tagged them for facial recognition we could wait days to pick them up and still stop more people than a wall would,
Facial recognition only works if someone's face is already in your DB. It's very easy to disappear into the country if you don't have an established identity, bank account, residence, et
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Facial recognition only works if someone's face is already in your DB.
That's not been my personal experience working in the industry of computer learning and image processing.
I guess it's up to those who support building a wall to prove that it will work. The burden isn't really on my to prove it won't work, or we will just go around in circles in the classic proving a negative problem. I don't see how it can work, I've provided examples where it can be circumvented. End result of the wall is coyotes will charge a little more to smuggle people in, so anyone with slightly more
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That's not been my personal experience working in the industry of computer learning and image processing.
How do you know who you've recognized, pray tell? Are you advocating arresting the next Mexican-American who steps in front of a government camera and their faces match up with your scan? That would be a Hell of a thing.
I guess it's up to those who support building a wall to prove that it will work.
Nope, Election. Done deal. The wall will be yuuuuuuge.
, I've provided examples where it can be circumvented
Every security system in the world, by itself, can be circumvented, for fucks sake. What a moron.
You seem like an idiot too (Score:2)
How do you know who you've recognized, pray tell?
Now I know they are in Cleveland. And possibly know where they are working, especially if they spend a lot of time outside in an urban area like as a construction worker or day laborer.
Nope, Election. Done deal. The wall will be yuuuuuuge.
Sure if you want to do things the wrong way, you can base it on alternative facts instead of factual facts. Alternative facts are a lot more fun for everyone involved, due diligence is tedious.
Every security system in the world, by itself, can be circumvented, for fucks sake. What a moron.
Hopefully not as trivially as wall by using a ladder, rope, aircraft, tunnel or explosives.
If it's an actual wall like made of brick t
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Are you sure your reps/senetors are against it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Many Dems supported the last expansion. It is kind of normal for a country to want secure borders.
https://www.senate.gov/legisla... [senate.gov]
Both Clinton and Obama voted Yea. This wasn't even controversial then, but now, it is Trump, so we must gnash our teeth.
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It Can't Happen Here (1935) - Sinclair Lewis had a Minute Men, which was a volunteer force that supported the fascist state but viewed themselves as patriots.
I'm not saying Trump is a fascist, maybe a corporatist (whatever that is). But there are a lot of idiots that think fascist ideas are a bad ass cowboy way to get things done, but fascism isn't cool at all it's rather shitty and terrifying. (real cowboys would kill a fascist)
Windows 10 update? (Score:1)
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I suspect ransomware. They just don;t want to say so. Several airlines have been affected like this recently.
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Nah, not ransom ware. Delta recently outsourced it's infra to Microsoft and 3rd party contractors. We weren't even able to log into email on the intranet during all this. Security certs out of date, and everything is now on *ugh* SharePoint. Intranet used to be fast, albeit it was organized horribly. They they announced the "new" deltanet which was all SharePoint. Now it's 4 times slower, but hey, it'll look good on a tablet and has slick animations while you're dying of old age waiting for the pages
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Got stranded in Atlanta... (Score:1)
and they're blaming the weather so they're not giving out hotel or food vouchers. My credit card is maxed, so this is going to be painful.
Re: Got stranded in Atlanta... (Score:2, Funny)
I work for Delta, and this is weather related so no one should get vouchers.
When will it change? (Score:4, Insightful)
How long can the airlines go on like this? Somewhere in office buildings around the country, there are MBAs and accountants working for various airlines who have compared the cost of in-house IT with the cost of outsourcing, and they all once decided that outsourcing was best. Somehow, I doubt they've included in their calculations the true frequency (and therefore cost) of IT failures that ground the entire airline for days. As these events stack up, these guys are going to have to re-evaluate their models for predicting the frequency and severity of failures, and at some point it's going to look like a good idea to have a real IT staff on-hand to keep systems working in the first place, and to deal with it when shit hits the fan.
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How long can the airlines go on like this? Somewhere in office buildings around the country, there are MBAs and accountants working for various airlines who have compared the cost of in-house IT with the cost of outsourcing, and they all once decided that outsourcing was best.
Why does everyone assume that Delta outsourced this work abroad?
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I said nothing about abroad.
Re:When will it change? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, to enhance upon my reply from a few minutes ago, it appears that in 2006, Delta outsourced its IT operations to IBM [1]. It was a seven year agreement, so I don't know who does it now. But I doubt it's Delta.
Assuming this is still the situation: I don't know on what continent Delta's IT people are stationed at this point, but that's hardly the issue. The issue is, wherever they are, they aren't competently managing Delta's IT infrastructure. They had a similarly airline-grounding outage in August, about six months ago.
If management were able to recognize the value of investment in IT, they could have taken steps over the years to develop a system that isn't this fragile. Presumably, back in 2006, when they went into bankruptcy, someone convinced them that IT wasn't a "core competency" because it would save the airline a bunch of money to outsource it. Since then, they've been accumulating tech debt because nobody at HQ actually owns IT anymore... they think it's just a service that they pay for. It doesn't appear to be working out for them.
[1] [informationweek.com]http://www.informationweek.com... [informationweek.com]?
Re:When will it change? (Score:4, Interesting)
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DL just recently bought their software back in house [delta.com]
On the web page that lists open IT jobs for Delta, most jobs are in Atlanta, GA, and a few are in Minneapolis, MN. [greatjob.net]
I don't know how many of their IT employees are H-1Bs, though.
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It should be a mandatory law for companies to publish the number of H1B or B1 visa employees they hire in the company.
It is the law. Also, all of their salaries are published. It used to be fun to match these salaries to specific people in the office (by hiring date, IIRC).
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IT is important to the operation hence you outsource it to those who specialize in IT. Airports are also critical to Deltas operations. Delta doesnt try to run Airports does it?
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This. "core competency". From experience it is due to cutbacks or fiscal restraint and at the decision of management. They only want to spend on "Core" things. At one point I was more less refused promotion because my position in "IT" wasn't considered "core". In *many* occurrences I've had project funds rejected for upgrades, because they were not "core" to the business. Trying to tell a manager how functional the promoted workers that were considered "core" that use said systems, or how the business as a
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I was more thinking along the lines of Overhaul Slashdot itsself to stop all the stupid garbage flaimbait storys that attract the kind of morons that abuse the moderation system.
Pay attention Alanis, that is actually fucking ironic.
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Itsself as well.
Very ironic though.
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Technical Debt (Score:4, Insightful)
You are not going to be able to fix this problem with the same thinking that got you into it.
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I think it'll be a super hard sell to get them to do a hard reboot on their whole system. But why not begin introducing a service oriented architecture that could be gradually rolled out and replace systems incrementally? Start with the most fragile systems and linkages and rebuild the whole system in situ?
I mean, I know it'll be more complicated than that simple statement, but at least it's a better plan than trying to install better and better windproofing to prevent the house of cards from toppling.
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Planes might be a technical enterprise. Airlines are not. They are mostly marketing and financial engineering. Everything else can and is subcontracted out.
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An airline's core enterprise is the same as Walmart's: logistics. The IT system that manages this is pretty much the whole airline. Much more than just bookings: maintaining the entire schedule of flights, along with some small pool of redundant equipment. Every airplane maintenance log and pilot hours tracking. What food to stock every flight with. It's all logistics, and without that IT system to manage it, there's no airline left. You'd think they'd act like it was important, but apparently not: ju
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Walmart as much as it is criticized has a superb highly paid IT department. They view IT as a way to minimize costs and part of the team that is core of the business.
That is the problem with outsourcing. Sure you can say a bank is not competent to run the cafeteria so outsource that. However, IT just like delivery drivers is really part of the whole process.
They are not a lawfirm or accounting firm either. But doesn't Walmart or Delta need competent accountants and lawyers verses shitty ones? YOU bet!
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The assumption in your argument is in house are better. Many would say if you want the best go to a firm who specialize in IT rather than trying to build your own out of scotch tape and servers.
Must have upgraded to Windows 10 (Score:5, Funny)
Somewhere, there's a computer that's "Preparing to configure Windows" after it rebooted in the middle of a flight scheduling run.
Or stuck at a BIOS prompt saying "No keyboard found, press F1 to continue."
Re:Must have upgraded to Windows 10 (Score:4, Insightful)
"Somewhere, there's a computer that's "Preparing to configure Windows" after it rebooted in the middle of a flight scheduling run." ...And stuck in a reboot loop of "Windows Update Failed" and "Preparing Windows update."
Systems from the 1960's (Score:3)
Re:Systems from the 1960's (Score:5, Informative)
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Bah.
The core system can't be "extremely stable". If all that breaks is the "online booking", then the airline wouldn't be grounded. They'd fly around with planes half-full of people who bought their tickets weeks in advance - a large part of the customer base. If the online booking breaks, you can't book online. You can still book by phoning them or showing up at their desk in the airport - where the core system is used directly. And you can still show up with your two week old tickets.
Having the web-based
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Seems like they believed you and brought the work back to US and are thus facing operational issues. IT needs a crazy work ethic or massive overstaffing to ensure everything runs soothly during the peak bug periods. Once you work with Indian companies where you staff with the minimum but stuff keeps running because folks give up their nights and weekends and then you try to bring the work back to US but with same levels of staffing you run into these problems. Either you need to have extra folks or you need
Probably should have charged more (Score:1)
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If they were running 1960s equipment they would not have a problem. It's like collapsing on the floor when you pencil breaks, dude, not a problem get a sharpener and sharpen that pencil and away you go.
The problem is companies in the insane greed who think they can completely abandon manual backups. When digital fails and it always will, always, not maybe will fail but always will fail, just a matter of when and how bad. No manual systems to fall back on and you shut down.
The US is heading for a major fa
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I doubt you have ever been involved in establishing and maintaining manual system. You can not simply scribble stuff on bits of paper. Data needs to make it from one person to another, set formats, product descriptions, needed information all need to be taken care of, no notes, not computer, no previous forms to copy, all from scratch. Those manual systems to many years to develop and training to use. Your hope for the best attitude will work after about 6 months and a percentage of the population has died
Who Needs Terrorism (Score:2)
When incompetence seems to do as much damage.
I wonder how long until the airlines receive a 'modernization bailout' ^H^H^H initiative
Real Reason (Score:2)
Real Reason: They've got to slow down the planes because it's hectic this week. I'm not sure why the airports are crazy, but they are. Something must have happened this week so they have to slow down the traffic.
DUPE! (Score:2)
When will slashdot stop with all the dupes.... Wait not a dupe? Again?
Best and brightest? Probably not.... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a developer, I can't imagine even bothering to answer an offer of employment from an airline these days. I spent considerable time looking for better options last year before deciding to take an offer and leave my employer of 20 years (HPE), and there were several potential employers I did avoid; work for any airline would have been a huge red flag for me. The way they've cut corners over the last few decades would definitely not make it a good place for career advancement.
I suspect the quality of their hires in IT would be limited by their reputation as employers and probably tend toward the desperate only looking to fill immediate financial needs on a temporary basis. I can't say this would lead to the most inspired work effort.
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Desperate looking to deal with an immediate need describes the Manhattan project. Great things are achieved by desperate folks. Comfortable folks hardly ever achieve great stuff
It doesn't always go your way (Score:2)
Desperate projects in the private sector usually turn out to be Sisyphian tasks.
I'll bet I know what the proposed solution will be (Score:2)
Insider perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
We may never know what happened - but airlines are coming off their holiday change freezes so I'll bet one of their releases went bad. I don't work for Delta, but I do work in the industry, including some stints at airlines. The central problem is that airlines are incredibly low-margin businesses. Yes, they charge for everything and flying is expensive, but for every last minute $1000 ticket are hundreds of people demanding the same flight for $129 and getting it, even though they barely break even on those customers. Airlines' biggest costs are fuel, labor and planes. When it comes to IT, it's just massive amounts of technical debt built on a very old core set of systems. All that customer facing tech is really driving some ancient stuff several layers deep, collecting the information and presenting it in a nice format like your phone screen. All of these abstractions, wrappers on wrappers and middleware have to work perfectly and it's a rickety tower sometimes. Also, airlines are run by MBAs who don't consider their IT a "core competency", so it either gets minimal funding or dumped off on a contractor. Often, the contractors develop stuff like the phone app or one of a billion middleware components and there are always integration issues...but the people in charge love the ability to pay someone $x to implement "that phone thing" or "the ability to do X without talking to an agent."
With all the negatives, it's a very challenging and fun environment to work in for the right kind of person. I've been doing it for 20+ years and on balance I really like it. Resourceful types do very well in airline IT, as do IT geeks who understand and care about the business they're supporting. It's extremely frustrating at times as well, and there's way more firefighting than there should be. Typical businesses will just throw money at a problem until it goes away or they run out, which is why there are so many software tool vendors and expensive hardware systems out there. Go to an airline and tell them to spend 5 million bucks, and you can forget it unless it's required for compliance, safety related or guaranteed to return an immediate increase in revenue. Unfortunately this is where the technical debt comes from because there's never enough people, and all those people are running around putting out fires all the time. If I were working for Delta right now, I guarantee I wouldn't have been sleeping for the last 24 hours as everyone tried to figure out what had gone wrong.
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You have an odd idea of fun to be treated as a lousy cost center without the tools to get the job done while at the same time getting disrespect for having stuff not work. I know I am kind of in that position now!
My job maybe on the line. A freaking customer has a change freeze impacting production with another customer where they start sitting new employees in 48 hours. 2 weeks later and still no VOIP phones working due to no IP addresses on a buggy Avaya switch. Nope can't be fixed and I am in hot water w
Quick OUTSOURCE NOW (Score:2)
We need a real team of Bangalore fresh graduates to fix this problem right away according to the MBAs. Those lazy cost centers in the US screwed us again!
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