The
failure of Delta Air Lines Inc.’s worldwide computer network this week
spotlights the vulnerability of the information systems sustaining the
biggest U.S. carriers, each of which has contended with major
disruptions during the last year.
Complex networks cobbled
together over the decades need major overhauls requiring significant new
investments, said Bob Edwards, a former chief information officer for
United Continental Holdings Inc. Recent flaws in computer systems
quickly escalated into corporate black eyes that exacted costs in both
money and reputation.
SOURCE: TODAY.NG
“I don’t believe the flight ops,
maintenance, passenger service systems, crew and dispatch applications
are engineered with the level of redundancy needed,” Edwards, who
retired in 2014 under pressure after several service disruptions at
United, said by telephone. More disruptions are a near certainty:
“Mistakes will happen, devices will malfunction.”
The Delta
debacle marks a wake-up call for an airline industry in which outdated
information systems can strand thousands of passengers.
The
Atlanta-based airline, which had been leading major carriers in
reliability, is far from alone in stumbling. Southwest Airlines Co. said
a computer failure July 20 would cost it “tens of millions” of dollars
after more than 2,300 flights were canceled.
Delta scrapped about
800 flights on Tuesday, after about 1,000 cancellations Monday. The
airline began Wednesday with about 150 cancellations and said it
expected to resume normal operation by mid-to-late afternoon Wednesday.
Check-in,
boarding and dispatch systems were working normally, with most delays
related to crew location and limits on hours worked.Delta spent
“hundreds of millions of dollars” on technology upgrades and backup
systems in the last three years to avoid such an outcome, Chief
Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in a video message to customers
Tuesday.
“I’m sorry that it happened,” he said. “This isn’t who we
are.”Chief Operating Officer Gil West said equipment controlling the
flow of electricity at Delta’s base in Atlanta malfunctioned early
Monday morning, “causing a surge to the transformer and a loss of
power.”
Though electricity was restored quickly, “critical systems
and network equipment didn’t switch over to backups. Other systems did.
And now we’re seeing instability in these systems.”
The cost of
lost revenue, accommodating passenger on other flights and other issues
may cut the airline’s third-quarter earnings by as much as 10 per cent,
Dan McKenzie, an analyst at Buckingham Research Group, said in a note
Tuesday. Unlike a factory hit by a disruption or strike, airlines
already running near capacity have limited ways to make up lost revenue.
Delta
isn’t the only airline struggling with outdated technology, said Mark
Jaggers, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner Inc.“A lot of
airlines have been struggling with legacy systems that they are not able
to shut down — decommission to move through their life cycle — because
they have a 24/7 operation,”
Jaggers said. “As they’ve grown in
importance and stature with more flights and customers, taking time to
do maintenance becomes a bigger issue.”
The starting point for
preventing computer failures is to ensure reliable electricity sources,
said Ron Peri, CEO of Radixx International, which provides
passenger-service systems to airlines including FlyDubai and Air India
Express. Radixx’s data center has backup power provided by three jet
engines, Peri said.The challenge of keeping systems upgraded is
particularly steep because they operate around the clock and jetliners
are in the air almost constantly these days.
“You’ve got these big
systems and maintaining them is kind of like maintaining an aircraft in
flight because they can’t go down,” Peri said. “The core design comes
from an era when the presumption was the systems would go down every
night.”
Customers probably won’t hold the inconvenience against
Delta long term because of its recent history ahead of other major
airlines in reliability, said Rick Garlick, global travel practice lead
for J.D. Power, which ranks airlines on customer satisfaction.Delta
offered $200 travel vouchers for passengers with flights that were
canceled or delayed by more than three hours. It also has waived change
fees and any fare differential on tickets.
Last month at
Southwest, computers were restored after about 12 hours but flights
continued to be canceled or delayed for several days as the carrier
worked to get crews and planes in the right locations. The carrier also
fell victim to a reservations-system glitch in October.
A
connectivity flaw at American Airlines Group Inc. halted flights at its
Chicago, Dallas and Miami hubs in September. A United Continental
computer fault last summer lasted two hours and disrupted travel for
thousands of fliers. It began with a router malfunctioning and prevented
the carrier from ticketing passengers and dispatching crews.
The
cost of having duplicate software and hardware at different locations is
minor when compared to the expense of having a system down for several
hours, not to mention the damage to the airline’s reputation, said Ahmed
Abdelghany, a professor of operations management at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University.
“We shouldn’t talk about the cost of
making your system reliable because you live on that system,” Abdelghany
said. “It’s like an operation room at a hospital: You can’t say I don’t
have power or I don’t have a backup for the system.”
