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Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

bbc.com

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Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#91

Post by mbostleman »

kalleboo wrote: post #57
Reason077 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably it helps that many (most?) travellers will be using the airline's apps these days, which provide info such as boarding times and gate updates.

In my experience, all the apps (airport, airline, travel apps, even Apple Wallet e-tickets) all have unreliable or heavily delayed gate information. Does anyone really rely on them?

I think it's evolving. For me it definitely used to be that way. I am a semi frequent Delta flyer and in the last year or so their app has become so reliable and useful that the only reason I need the airport monitors is that it is often a second or two faster to just look up at a big display rather that going through the clicks and swipes to get to the data in my hand.

A big improvement has been wifi availability and stability on the plane. Not so much because I can browse the web in flight, but because regardless of whether I get in flight wifi, the airline's app uses it for free. So now that wifi is reliably always there, I know what's up and where I'm going before I walk off the plane.

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#92

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #80
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why they have no fallback strategies They do. It's the whiteboards. Whiteboards are cheap, resilient and robust. Exactly what one wants for a backup.

It's a good overall plan C. But why does the data link itself have no fallback? An important data link should have multiple dissimilar backups.

> why does the data link itself have no fallback?

It's Gatwick, not Heathrow. Whiteboards are good enough. If every airport the size of Gatwick (and busier) implemented digital fallbacks, I wouldn't be surprised if the fallbacks took out the primary system more often than external causes. (I can’t remember the last time I used those screens over my phone. In a certain sense, the screens are now a backup.)

More precisely, if you consider the number of situations which (a) take down the primary system but (b) don't take out the airport, and try to cover those as cheaply and robustly as possible, for all but the world's busiest airports you come up with whiteboards. Localised power failure? Whiteboards. Surge? Whiteboards. Limited fire or flooding? Whiteboards. Fibre-optic cable gets nicked? Whiteboards or alternative digital system. Now compare the costs and risks of the digital system. Whiteboards are the work of a smart operator who probably saved their airport years of technical debt.

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#93

Post by NittLion78 »

kalleboo wrote: post #57
Reason077 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably it helps that many (most?) travellers will be using the airline's apps these days, which provide info such as boarding times and gate updates.

In my experience, all the apps (airport, airline, travel apps, even Apple Wallet e-tickets) all have unreliable or heavily delayed gate information. Does anyone really rely on them?

The apps are touch-and-go. Some are fairly reliable (assuming wherever you are you have decent data connection), others are abyssmal, and none of them seem to be consistent in either regard.

I have found, however, if you sign up for SMS updates through most airlines they appear to be quite reliable, and sometimes beat the in-airport departure boards by several minutes, particularly for gate changes.

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#94

Post by kovek »

Went volunteering at a speed skating event once. One task I was asked to help with was mark the order of the skaters at the end of the race. I asked why that is and they explained that if all systems fail (1. Device on the skater's ankle, 2. cameras recording the race), then this ordering we note is what they will fall back on.

It seems like a lot of work people do is individual and idle when other systems take responsibility of many issues in a process. I'm glad that people worked closer together as a result of this failure!

I'm glad people worked closer together here, not that there was a failure!

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#95

Post by dang »

ams6110 wrote: post #9
retSava wrote: post #2

My first thought was that the whiteboards themselves failed, that this was some kind of The Onion article, but it isn't. It's simply that the backup plan to the failing digital boards, are plain whiteboards.

Same. That is a really poorly worded headline.

A preposition swap (s/as/after/) should do the trick.

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#96

Post by barbegal »

This was a failure of a fibre connection to the internet and a cloud service.

Oddly enough, Gatwick's CIO was last week [1] telling journalists that he didn't like to rely on the cloud:

"The airport has used multi-tenanted public cloud in the past, but for that to work perfectly you need your telecom providers to work well, the path across internet to work, the hosting firm's telecoms to work, and their data centre support and monitoring not to drop. We have had examples where even in the public cloud using dedicated slices, you can suffer from noisy neighbours, and we just can't have that. Our operations are too important to us, so we need to keep it close. We use cloud for resilience, and we're very pro-cloud, but not for core services."

So it seems odd that departure boards were being fed from a cloud service. Maybe they hadn't been considered as a core service until now.

On the bright side at least the failure was limited to just the boards. The website, apps and check in desks all had the correct information.

[1] https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3034002/too-many-compan...

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#97

Post by hermitdev »

lgeorget wrote: post #22
lakisy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some years ago, we lost access to our data center although it had triple network redundancy. What happened was that three cables were leaving the DC leased by three different companies. But a mile down the road, all three different cable entered the same physical pipe. When the physical pipe was severed, all three network cables went dark. We should wait until they announced details of what happened before we decide…

If my memory serves, one requirement of high-tier datacenters is that they have redundant electric lines leaving the building from opposite sides and in opposite directions. I guess it must be the same for optic fibers. I fully agree with you on your last sentence. One should wait for a bit more than a vague declaration reported in a newspaper before giving unsolicited advice.

Yes, they leave different ends/sides of the building, but you don't have much control on where they have utility right of way and whether or not at some point all of your lines share the same right of way (which is likely).

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#98

Post by aglionby »

kalleboo wrote: post #57
Reason077 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably it helps that many (most?) travellers will be using the airline's apps these days, which provide info such as boarding times and gate updates.

In my experience, all the apps (airport, airline, travel apps, even Apple Wallet e-tickets) all have unreliable or heavily delayed gate information. Does anyone really rely on them?

I had a great experience with Lufthansa recently. Wasn't using their app, but received very punctual emails with delay and gate information, to the extent that the gate change email came at pretty much the same time as the announcement. Had a new flight, ticket, and gate automatically within about 10 minutes of missing my connecting flight as well.

Re: Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail

#100

Post by GFischer »

kalleboo wrote: post #57
Reason077 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably it helps that many (most?) travellers will be using the airline's apps these days, which provide info such as boarding times and gate updates.

In my experience, all the apps (airport, airline, travel apps, even Apple Wallet e-tickets) all have unreliable or heavily delayed gate information. Does anyone really rely on them?

I built and maintain one such service. Hopefully we don't have delayed gate information, but we DO ultimately rely on airlines, and we sometimes get very confusing information.
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