Airlines these days are run by a complex set of systems most of which have to work in order to have the airline function. I remember a few years ago SABRE (one of the 3 major GDS companies in the world) had a 4 hour outage (I worked for a division). Half the world's airlines stopped functioning. Generally these things seldom go down but when they do, hell breaks loose. Often these systems not only do reservations, bu…
Your comment reminds me of how crazy duct-tape and bubblegum is in our IT industry.
British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
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Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#62Other quality airlines have outsourced IT or part of their IT operations, but they are careful about choosing their IT vendors.
For example, Israel's national carrier, El Al, which also has extremely good security against hijacking, outsources at least its ticketing as a cost savings move, but this it does to Lufthansa the German national carrier, which uses the Amadeus Ticketing platform. El Al is saving money over running their own operations, but still using a reliable vendor.
Quantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one.
Contrasting with Israeli and Australian flag carriers El Al and Quantas, BA the British flag carrier made some extremely unwise choices trying choose a "cheapest" solution, instead of a money saving cheaper solution.
Compared with El Al and Quantas, BA management has shown us that quality of operations is not their top priority. The question is, where else in their operations is this a problem?
BA management is revealing to customer and shareholder alike that customer service and shareholder value is not their highest priority. They are signaling to shareholders that it is time for a change before they further harm the BA brand and before some serious accident happens.
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#631. Massive security breaches affecting major corporations, governments, and so on.
2. Massive IT outages, affecting corporations, governments and so forth.
It doesn't take a lot of incidents to mark them as 'massive' since things are strongly centralized in this world.
Meanwhile, in the last 15 years of my IT career, never have I seen such a strong push towards offshoring. One would think that with such a vulnerable IT landscape mixed with an unprecedented dependence on IT infrastructure, that CTO's would want to spend more and not LESS on operational costs.
I'm slightly baffled.
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#64Airlines should band together and form working group to redevelop the old system in modern open source tech. Yes it would probably take 5+ years to develop and roll out, but they can't keep maintaining these 50 year old mainframes that cost them tens of millions a year in downtime.
"Redevelop the old system in modern open source tech" is a tough sell when so many of these airlines are differentiating on technology. Myself and many other frequent fliers will not engage with companies with poor functionality and bad UX. We move or stay loyal when airline tech allows us to do & see most of the things we need.
When you live in a world w/ Docker, REST (and every other open tech there is), you can build systems which are way more innovative.
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#65Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#66Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#67By using IT outsourcing in India (Tata?), Poland, BA and its parent is revealing some important information: They are cutting corners to the point of risking airline operations. The question is, where else are they unnecessarily cutting corners? Are they cutting unnecessary corners on airplane maintenance? Other quality airlines have outsourced IT or part of their IT operations, but they are careful about choosing th…
I believe IBM was responsible for the Australian census debacle in 2016. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their reliability, and not the only high-profile instance of them messing things up.
"No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" though.
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#68In the tech-related (but now fully mainstream, unlike a few years ago) news these days, there are a number of recurring themes. 1. Massive security breaches affecting major corporations, governments, and so on. 2. Massive IT outages, affecting corporations, governments and so forth. It doesn't take a lot of incidents to mark them as 'massive' since things are strongly centralized in this world. Meanwhile, in the last…
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#69By using IT outsourcing in India (Tata?), Poland, BA and its parent is revealing some important information: They are cutting corners to the point of risking airline operations. The question is, where else are they unnecessarily cutting corners? Are they cutting unnecessary corners on airplane maintenance? Other quality airlines have outsourced IT or part of their IT operations, but they are careful about choosing th…
Quantas, the airline of Australia, outsources its IT operations to IBM. They did not choose the cheapest alternative, but a reliable one. I believe IBM was responsible for the Australian census debacle in 2016. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their reliability, and not the only high-profile instance of them messing things up. "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM" though.
At any rate, I believe few would contest that IBM in general is a more reliable vendor than Tata, other Indian suppliers or say, offices in Poland.
EDIT: Details on IBM and Australian census. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/turning-router-off-and...
Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash
#70In the tech-related (but now fully mainstream, unlike a few years ago) news these days, there are a number of recurring themes. 1. Massive security breaches affecting major corporations, governments, and so on. 2. Massive IT outages, affecting corporations, governments and so forth. It doesn't take a lot of incidents to mark them as 'massive' since things are strongly centralized in this world. Meanwhile, in the last…
I get the impression that for the most part, no one really believes in security, and doesn't understand that it's a process and not a product. They already tried throwing money at the problem by purchasing security products, which ultimately failed to deliver security. Now they're trying the opposite by cutting costs. Meanwhile there are very few consequences to losing control of people's data.