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Transportation IT Technology

British Airways Cancels Over 100 Flights After Computer Systems Fail (cnn.com) 51

British Airways canceled more than 100 flights Wednesday after the airline's computer systems crashed. From a report: The cancellations hit thousands of travelers using London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Another 300 flights faced delays of up to an hour, according to the airline's website. British Airways, which is owned by International Airlines Group (ICAGY), said its check-in and flight start systems suffered a partial crash, and that it was using "backup manual systems to keep our flights operating." A spokesperson for the airline said it would allow customers on canceled flights to rebook for between August 8 and August 13. British Airways did not say what caused the computer outage.
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British Airways Cancels Over 100 Flights After Computer Systems Fail

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  • British Airways did not say what caused the computer outage.

    Directly or indirectly, it was [only] caused by MBA's.

    • It is funny, you mention how MBA mess up everything... However I have often found such bad decisions are from middle managers (often without an MBA) who cause the problems, because they are trying to be Mr. Big Manager Guy who solves all the problems. While the MBA's are trained via their Masters Level Classes, to recognize people who are the ones who are able to solve the problems, and no matter what your previous experience is, when you are in management level, you don't have the time and resources to fo

      • MBA: Last year you were budgeted to upgrade your systems.
        Middle Manager: Yea we didn't get to that yet because we're understaffed, and while you assigned the highest priority to the upgrade, pretty much everything else still got bumped to the front of the queue because "we cannot afford not to do this"
        MBA: So we lost millions of dollars in revenue, because oh! look! A huge distracting thing! *runs*

        FTFY

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        In this case a new MBA came in and went on a cost cutting spree, which meant getting rid of all the good IT staff and outsourcing as much as possible to India. Now when things break it's out of office hours in India and latest word is they haven't even figured out what is broken yet.

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      BA had a similar outage a few years ago following a power cut (insert snark about power supplies and data centre redundancy here). IIRC, the power issue was resolved fairly quickly, but it then transpired that their DC was a hodge-podge of hundreds of different systems that needed to be brought back up in a specific order to ensure they all worked correctly. Needless to say, no one was quite sure what that order needed to be when it mattered.

      Just a guess, but do you suppose the reason it's similarly ch
  • British Airways did not say what caused the computer outage.

    I blame the moon tardigrades.

    • I blame the moon tardigrades.

      Wow! A lot of companies have off-shored their IT systemIT systems to the Moon?

      That's a bit of a hike!

      But if IT services are cheaper on the Moon, I guess it makes sense.

      • I blame the moon tardigrades.

        Wow! A lot of companies have off-shored their IT systemIT systems to the Moon?

        That's a bit of a hike!

        But if IT services are cheaper on the Moon, I guess it makes sense.

        Tardigrades are cheaper than people... all they need is waking once every 10 years with water and food. You can save a lot of money on heating bills and oxygen supplies by having a Moon-Tardigrade workforce instead of people.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I blame the moon tardigrades.

      I blame Earth-tards, the pointy-haired kind.

  • Buy lots of tinfoil. It's Kevlar for Komputers®

  • Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, "Well, it works for me." Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer...
    Bastard Operator From Hell
    • by trolman ( 648780 ) *
      And folks...that is how it is done. Get your BOFH random excuse generator. Available on the app store (or it was a few years back).
  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @12:41PM (#59057992)
    You'd think the fact that a computer failure costs them millions of dollars would make it easy to justify triple-redundant computer systems, wouldn't you?
    • by trolman ( 648780 ) *
      Compared to the previous outage this was really short. Fail over does take some time and is rarely perfect. I am not making guesses but this was pretty short compared to other 'headline generating IT failures.'
    • by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      No, you wouldn't (or shouldn't) think that. Your risk/benefits analysis is missing a crucial element - the cost of the redundant systems. There is cost to develop, cost to maintain, cost of additional space (you're not going to put your redundant systems in the same datacenter, are you), cost of additional electric and cooling, cost of additional staff, and so on. Then there is always the possibility that something in the redundant setup causes an outage that would not otherwise have happened.

      Look at it

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      That would require admitting that the system was less than perfect. Instead whoever is responsible will try to blame someone else, who will get fired and then the problem is considered "fixed" and there is no need for redundancy.

    • You'd think the fact that a computer failure costs them millions of dollars would make it easy to justify triple-redundant computer systems, wouldn't you?

      Firstly, point to the fact that it cost them millions (in profit, not in revenue, or a flight that wasn't able to be taken in a given day). Mass cancellations without recourse are a normal part of operating an airline. Boeing had to reschedule 100 flights? Well shit in Amsterdam in one day they had to reschedule 400 just because of a fuel issue, most of those affecting KLM. A bit of bad weather can easily take down a major hub airport as well.

      Something needs to be done, money needs to be spent, but *not* on

  • To me it is insane that any flights need to be canceled if computer systems go down.

    All people (maintenance, pilots, crew passengers) are there. The plane can fly without being connected to anything else (so far). I just don't understand how after multiple failures of this sort they cannot make the system in such a way that flights at least can still continue, even if maybe new tickets could not be issued at the time...

  • They didn't try to shift blame to "a drone" flying nearby, this time.

    Could it be because this time, unlike last christmas, the airport wasn't changing hands?

    noooo...

  • Management always listens to sales and marketing but ignores their own technology sectors. IT never gets enough money. So when it all comes crashing down, management acts surprised and blames IT. IT employees lose their jobs but management makes the same mistakes, setting the company up for the next failure and the next culling of IT employees.

    Meanwhile, the real problem is the company's most public employee, the CEO. Why don't the shareholders or the board _do_ something about this?

    This question works

  • âoeThose who stand and wait also serveâ

    Do you want Clippers with that order?

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