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British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 117 posts

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#51

A failure of IT systems shouldn't stop the plane flying... The gate staff should just let anyone onboard with a legit ticket or a sufficient story about buying one. Sure, some people might get a free ride, or a few legit ticket holders can't get on because the plane is full, but overall, most passengers end up happy. Simple things like "the pilot can't log in to the HR system so he gets paid for the flight" should be…

> a sufficient story about buying one

That's insane - that'd never happen. There's no way they can take that security and immigration risk. I bet they can't even do that if they want to - I'm sure governments need to know all travellers precisely.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#52

[Controversial post] This is what happens when you treat "IT" as a cost centre and outsource it to India with TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Accenture etc. In the case of BA; its Tata Consultancy Service (TCS). I can't comment on outsourcing to Phillipines, Ukraine or Malaysia. I've worked with two companies that did their outsourcing to India and it was a shitshow. First and foremost there is the cultural barrier, sure…

I do agree with some of your points but looks like outsourcing industry is the favorite scapegoat these days for any failure. From other anecdotes in this comment section, various other reason are being thrown around for BA repeatedly having IT failure. So without any proper analysis it would be premature to conclude one way or the other.

It doesn't specifically have to be outsourcing. Just the massive change associated with it. Take something mediocre, and try to run it somewhere else, and it's worse. Similar outcome to moving it across the country with a different set of "locals".

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#53
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even in recent times; since Lockerbie they’ll offload your bags if you’re not on the flight. If BA put aircraft in the air without any idea who was on them, they’d be rapidly forced to land again with the threat of being shot down.

> since Lockerbie they’ll offload your bags if you’re not on the flight. Not in the US... Even back in the 90s - just a few years after Lockerbie - we had some UK guests staying with us. We flew from Detroit to Vegas for a few days. They're luggage got put on a different plane, and ended up in LA. They were horrified and couldn't figure out why their luggage was on a flight they weren't on. Doesn't seem to be a big c…

You're mixing a mistake (luggage redirected) with a specific situation (missing passenger). Mistakes happen. But known abandoned luggage will be offloaded.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#54

[Controversial post] This is what happens when you treat "IT" as a cost centre and outsource it to India with TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Accenture etc. In the case of BA; its Tata Consultancy Service (TCS). I can't comment on outsourcing to Phillipines, Ukraine or Malaysia. I've worked with two companies that did their outsourcing to India and it was a shitshow. First and foremost there is the cultural barrier, sure…

Everything you say is right and true for out-sourcing. However, I think the better point is that companies like this treat their IT platform as a cost center. They need to invest in that just as much as new planes and amenities for passengers. This is the consequence of not doing so and having 30 year old systems still in the critical path. They have all built a spectacular mountain of technical debt. This is largely true for banks and hospitals and many other industries.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#55

I'm stuck in London right now trying to get to Athens on British Airways because of this IT failure. I went to a gate of an earlier flight where they had opened up a couple of seats, and the gate agents were trying to get me on, but the computer system didn't let them do it and they had to let the flight leave. It's interesting to see the breakdown of automation. Lines are long yes, but they also don't move because e…

If your time is at all valuable to you, I strongly advise not depending on the airline for anything. Book your own hotel immediately; don't wait for a voucher. Arrange your own transport to your destination; don't wait in an hours long line. You may be able to get compensation later, but the important thing is you'll have a place to sleep and arrive at your destination long before you otherwise would.

Case in point.. a few weeks ago, I was flying Delta from their hub in ATL to my home city, about 300 miles away. There were flight cancellations due to severe weather all evening. The lines to speak to agents were almost as long as the entire terminal. Lines were 20-30 people long even in the Skyclub.

My 9pm flight kept getting delayed, and delayed, and delayed. It was finally cancelled at 12:30a just as I was about to board. Rather than wait in a line for a hotel voucher, I brought up my Marriott app and booked something myself. When I got to my hotel, I saw that Delta had auto-rebooked me on a flight leaving the next night. So I rented a car from a suburban Hertz location (all the cars at the airport were gone). In line at the rental car place the next morning, I talked to several people whose flights were cancelled. By the time they'd waited in the lines, all the hotel rooms were gone and they had slept on the floor at the airport.

I arrived home around 5pm, 3 hours before the rebooked flight was scheduled to leave (and yes, it was delayed). Delta refunded me for that leg of the trip, which just about covered the rental car.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#56
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a £2000 fine for passengers with inadequate documentation: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/passenger-documen...

Hwoever every 4-6 passengers they deny boarding is a €2000 fine. For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked. For other flights they normally check visas at the checkin desk, but if you're transferring you usually get visa checked at the gate. Most people have nice simple visas that pretty much anyone can check, a few troublemakers like me rely on more…

> For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked.

Which countries? I fly a lot NLES, ESDE and they don't check my passport usually. I do take it because sometimes they ask for it, but mostly they don't.

The UK obviously being the outlier; very paranoid with extremely old scanners so security takes a long time, especially at Heathrow.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#57
post #49

I was stuck in LHR during the last time they had an identical system outage. I was lucky to be the very first person in line to check-in when the systems went down, so I was the first through when they fixed it 90min later. I had however missed my flight by then. Also, everyone was a lot more pleasant about it in the first wing vs. the mess in the general check-in hall. Seems these issues are not infrequent. BA and L…

Seems these issues are not infrequent. BA and LHR need to get their shit together.

Not just LHR and BA. Most of the major US carriers have had similar catasrophic IT failures over the last few years. It's industry-wide.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#58

[Controversial post] This is what happens when you treat "IT" as a cost centre and outsource it to India with TCS, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Accenture etc. In the case of BA; its Tata Consultancy Service (TCS). I can't comment on outsourcing to Phillipines, Ukraine or Malaysia. I've worked with two companies that did their outsourcing to India and it was a shitshow. First and foremost there is the cultural barrier, sure…

Minor nitpick, the language is called Malayalam, not "Malalayam". It's easy to remember, because it is the only language in the world which reads the same from back to front ;) > Therefore a lot of undocumented knowledge gets lost which inevitably causes problems when doing maintenance or solving outages. One week you are working with a brilliant person, the next week they are gone. I had the same experience with out…

The “coding seen as too low” mentality is slowly changing. Most of the very well paid employees and even many of the founders of newly found companies are known to be good programmers. People who look down on code are (rightly) missing out

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#59
post #21
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In yesterday's world, yeah. Today, when you have to take off your shoes to get onto a plane in the US, I don't see that happening.

Not even in recent times; since Lockerbie they’ll offload your bags if you’re not on the flight. If BA put aircraft in the air without any idea who was on them, they’d be rapidly forced to land again with the threat of being shot down.

In 2015 I was flying from Copenhagen to Helsinki with Finnair. I missed the flight after checking in, and they didn't unload my bag, although they should have.

I was waiting in the lounge as it kept being delayed further and further, with the standard 'go to gate' message. Unfortunately they were also slow at updating the status and it went seamlessly into 'gate closed'. I ran to the gate, but was too late. The staff there seemed surprised that they'd missed me - they weren't even aware they were missing a passenger.

The fun then started trying to get my bag back. Copenhagen airport made me wait around for hours for my bag to arrive at the designated unloading carousel, and wouldn't open a missing bag ticket. Eventually they had to concede it had gone missing somewhere after I found the baggage handler who'd unloaded some bags from my flight saying he hadn't unloaded mine. They still wouldn't admit it had flown ahead of me, even as a possibility.

When I then got to Helsinki on the next flight, I went to the counter and told them they had my bag. Again they told me there was no possibility they had it, and wouldn't even look. So I gave them my ticket number and left. They found my bag shortly after I left, of course.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hwoever every 4-6 passengers they deny boarding is a €2000 fine. For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked. For other flights they normally check visas at the checkin desk, but if you're transferring you usually get visa checked at the gate. Most people have nice simple visas that pretty much anyone can check, a few troublemakers like me rely on more…

> For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked. Which countries? I fly a lot NL ES, ES DE and they don't check my passport usually. I do take it because sometimes they ask for it, but mostly they don't. The UK obviously being the outlier; very paranoid with extremely old scanners so security takes a long time, especially at Heathrow.

They only have to check at entry to Schengen zone, which the UK and Ireland are outside.
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