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A Question For Our Favourite Pilot!!
#1
I have a question for 727Sky, does any of this strike you as odd?
It's been said by some news outlets that British Airways out-sources it's computer-side of
the business to India and I was surprised when BA came out and explained the recent
long delays on a 'power outage' that cripped their system.

Apart from that, they've been reluctant to say more.
Can you assist, Sky?

BA delays: British Airways restores full flight schedule.

'British Airways is now operating a full flight schedule after an IT failure saw the airline cancel
thousands of flights over the bank holiday weekend.

"Our IT systems are now back up and running and we will be operating a full flight schedule at
Heathrow and Gatwick," the airline said.
But it warned it "may take some time" to reunite travellers with their bags.

[Image: attachment.php?aid=1890]

BA chief executive Alex Cruz has blamed a power surge for the disruption, which affected 75,000
people.

In a statement on Monday, the airline apologised again for the "frustration and inconvenience" to
passengers and said it was continuing to get people reunited with their luggage "as quickly as possible".
The airline also admitted that it was aware some passengers were unable to file a delayed bag report
on its website.

Thousands of BA passengers worldwide are still without their bags and have been bombarding the
airline's lost luggage phone lines, website and social media feeds...'

What went wrong at BA?

'As British Airways (BA) finally starts to recover from a disastrous IT failure, an inquest is under way into
what went wrong and why it has taken so long to fix it.
I've been contacted by someone who spent 30 years in corporate IT with some interesting theories.

The man - who doesn't want to be named - says airlines probably invest more in IT than any other
organisations apart from banks, so this kind of thing just should not happen.
But he has three questions.

Why did a power failure have such an impact?
BA blames a power cut but in the words of my expert, it shouldn't have caused "even a flicker of the lights"
in the data-centre. The UPS - the uninterruptible power supply - should have kicked in immediately.
The only issue should have been making sure the back-up generator was kept fed with fuel.
Why was it so difficult to recover?

Even if the power could not be restored, the airline's Disaster Recovery Plan should have whirred into action.
But that will have depended in part on veteran staff with knowledge of the complex patchwork of systems built
up over the years. Many of those people may have left when much of the IT operation was outsourced to India.

And there may have been a situation where one team was frantically trying to restore the original system while
elsewhere another team was attempting to fire up the back-up - with managers unsure which of the two
workstreams to prioritise.

One theory of my IT veteran is that when the power came back on, the systems were unusable because the
data was unsynchronised. In other words the airline was suddenly faced with a mass of conflicting records
of passengers, aircraft and baggage movements - all the complex logistics of modern air travel...'

It's a puzzle.


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Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe. 
#2
Sorry no help here.. Everything from booking to baggage is on a computer system.. When that system goes down their world stops..
#3
(05-31-2017, 11:51 PM)727Sky Wrote: Sorry no help here.. Everything from booking to baggage is on a computer system.. When that system goes down their world stops..

Cheers Sir, I thought you may have some insight being sort-of in that line of work.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe. 
#4
(06-01-2017, 09:19 AM)BIAD Wrote:
(05-31-2017, 11:51 PM)727Sky Wrote: Sorry no help here.. Everything from booking to baggage is on a computer system.. When that system goes down their world stops..

Cheers Sir, I thought you may have some insight being sort-of in that line of work.

I remember the days when a passenger bought a ticket and the agent took a little sticky color coded dot and affixed your newly purchased dot to an empty seat on a schematic of the aircraft interior.....

Then the computers came along and now the agents just stand there typing.. Only problem with the old system was if coffee was spilled on the sticky dot paper... Then the fall back was a pencil and a "X" .... one thing about the old method was there were never any seat dupes that I can remember...


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