United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#11

Post by lectrick » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #2

Very little news about this on Google News, but heard over the local Chicago ABC affiliate that the FAA attributed this to an "automation error" Edit: And its Twitter account has been relatively inactive, with more than 30 minutes since the last reply-to or general tweet...presumably a lot complaining tweets have come in in the last 30 minutes https://twitter.com/united/with_replies

Just a minute ago they tweeted about it: https://twitter.com/united/status/618769524544942081

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#12

Post by TWAndrews » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

I was able to get checked in via the United android App around 9am ET.

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#13

Post by raus22 » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

Off-topic: Please use ISO 8601 format(YYYY-MM-DD) for dates in titles. The US date format hurts my poor logical soul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#14

Post by peterjmag » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

Ouch. And only a month after another major systems outage: http://www.wired.com/2015/06/united-flights-grounded-mysteri...

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#15

Post by jonawesomegreen » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

I bet this is an issue with an old mainframe used somewhere in the booking system, something that has worked well but is difficult to fix when things go wrong.

I think there is / will be a lot of money to be made trying to solve the problem of software security and reliability. This is obviously an extremely difficult problem, however the number of ancient systems that we currently have interconnected I think more large scale outages like this are inevitable.

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#16

Post by interdrift » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

raus22 wrote: post #13

Off-topic: Please use ISO 8601 format(YYYY-MM-DD) for dates in titles. The US date format hurts my poor logical soul. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

It's still month 7 so it's hard to be confused. PS. From Europe.

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#17

Post by imgabe » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

United is a mess. I had the misfortune of flying with them a couple months ago. I ended up in a city a 2 hour drive from my actual destination and had to rent a car on my own to get to where I was going.

That was the worst of it, but almost every flight I saw on the way (both ones I was on and other flights at nearby gates) was delayed or overbooked or otherwise messed up in some way.

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#18

Post by mnw21cam » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

raus22 wrote: post #13

Off-topic: Please use ISO 8601 format(YYYY-MM-DD) for dates in titles. The US date format hurts my poor logical soul. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Or just use words (8th July 2015). But yes, YYYY-MM-DD actually sorts correctly.

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#19

Post by vaadu » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

How do you know it's a glitch(whatever that means) and not a big problem such as a data center outage or hacker caused?

Re: United Airlines System-Wide Computer Problem

#20

Post by yAnonymous » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

lectrick wrote: post #9

I have a nagging (intuition? feeling?) that software safety/reliability/security needs are going to explode soon (because unreliabilities multiply in non-resilient systems interacting with each other) and that these are simply foreshocks. (yeah, I know security is already a huge deal, but as we come to trust software systems more and more, the safety/reliability factor will come more into play) EDIT: This is also par…

I doubt it. Nobody wants to pay for that.