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British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

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Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#71
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are there commonly algos or decision support tools to help unravel that in an optimised way?

I suspect that there's a lot of eating crow and bargaining with rivals for space on their flights to help clear the backlog, but each incident is going to have unique elements to resolve in it...

Sadly that doesn't work for any serious outage.

If it's only one airline down, you can get away by buying tickets on competitors.

If it's multiple airlines, or the upstream reservation system, or a local meteorological incident, or an airport wide issue, etc... there are no flying plane.

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#72
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are there commonly algos or decision support tools to help unravel that in an optimised way?

I suspect that there's a lot of eating crow and bargaining with rivals for space on their flights to help clear the backlog, but each incident is going to have unique elements to resolve in it...

It's standard practice for airlines to fly each others' crews around even during normal operations (often at no cost).

For example, the overbooking that led to the beating on the United flight was the result of an aircrew from another airline being booked on at the last second.

I would imagine that when the shit hits the fan like this, the other airlines are very sympathetic and will do whatever it takes to get BA personnel where they need to go. After all, next month it could be their own systems that are down.

(assuming it's not one of the shared services causing a global outage - not much you can do when everyone is down)

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#73
post #67

By 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.

IBM makes mistakes but IBM is massive. You expect some things to happen just by the sheer surface area they have.

I'd trust IBM over random outsourced coding houses when it comes to IT Security.

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#74

By 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…

Yes, it's a cyclic trend in IT:

  Step 0. Well functioning and balanced company.
  Step 1. Why these engineers are so expensive? We can hire 'ten for one' in 'country A'.
  Step 2. Cut local IT budget twice, put goals to have *zero* local IT budget in 2 years. Outsource everything to 'country A'.
  Step 3. People are fired, everything is outsourced, operational knowledge accumulated over the last few years is lost. 
  Step 4. Why everything is broken and we loosing millions? The service is of a quality like we live in 'country A'!
  Step 5. We need to hire high quality local team that can take *ownership* over product. We are willing to pay a fortune.
  Step 6. Well functioning and balanced company.
Not sure, if airplane maintenance is being treated the same way.

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#76
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about Krakow per se. But when a company works towards specific targets like "90/10 supplier offshore ratio", rather than metrics based on quality or efficiency, I don't think quality comes first.

On the one hand I've never seen a successful project with non-colocated teams, whether 300km away or 10.000km away. On the other hand, I'm surprised a airplane company is so much localized in UK.

Basecamp

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#77
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about Krakow per se. But when a company works towards specific targets like "90/10 supplier offshore ratio", rather than metrics based on quality or efficiency, I don't think quality comes first.

On the one hand I've never seen a successful project with non-colocated teams, whether 300km away or 10.000km away. On the other hand, I'm surprised a airplane company is so much localized in UK.

Any distributed startup. There are thousands.

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#78

By 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…

Yes, it's a cyclic trend in IT: Step 0. Well functioning and balanced company. Step 1. Why these engineers are so expensive? We can hire 'ten for one' in 'country A'. Step 2. Cut local IT budget twice, put goals to have *zero* local IT budget in 2 years. Outsource everything to 'country A'. Step 3. People are fired, everything is outsourced, operational knowledge accumulated over the last few years is lost. Step 4. W…

You cat bet it is: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-...

FTA:

>The airplanes that U.S. carriers send to Aeroman undergo what’s known in the industry as “heavy maintenance,” which often involves a complete teardown of the aircraft. Every plate and panel on the wings, tail, flaps, and rudder are unscrewed, and all the parts within—cables, brackets, bearings, and bolts—are removed for inspection. The landing gear is disassembled and checked for cracks, hydraulic leaks, and corrosion. The engines are removed and inspected for wear. Inside, the passenger seats, tray tables, overhead bins, carpeting, and side panels are removed until the cabin has been stripped down to bare metal. Then everything is put back exactly where it was, at least in theory.

>The work is labor-intensive and complicated, and the technical manuals are written in English, the language of international aviation. According to regulations, in order to receive F.A.A. certification as a mechanic, a worker needs to be able to “read, speak, write, and comprehend spoken English.” Most of the mechanics in El Salvador and some other developing countries who take apart the big jets and then put them back together are unable to meet this standard. At Aeroman’s El Salvador facility, only one mechanic out of eight is F.A.A.-certified. At a major overhaul base used by United Airlines in China, the ratio is one F.A.A.-certified mechanic for every 31 non-certified mechanics. In contrast, back when U.S. airlines performed heavy maintenance at their own, domestic facilities, F.A.A.-certified mechanics far outnumbered everyone else. At American Airlines’ mammoth heavy-maintenance facility in Tulsa, certified mechanics outnumber the uncertified four to one.

Re: British Airways: All flights cancelled amid IT crash

#80

By 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…

Yes, it's a cyclic trend in IT: Step 0. Well functioning and balanced company. Step 1. Why these engineers are so expensive? We can hire 'ten for one' in 'country A'. Step 2. Cut local IT budget twice, put goals to have *zero* local IT budget in 2 years. Outsource everything to 'country A'. Step 3. People are fired, everything is outsourced, operational knowledge accumulated over the last few years is lost. Step 4. W…

> We can hire 'ten for one' in a country A.

Rather: 'two for one'.

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