PSU.DTW.SCE wrote:

The timing was pretty bad too since it went down right in the middle of the big early-evening banks at both DTW and ATL. They couldn't get the early-evening departure bank out and airplanes for the last bank of the evenings were already en-route leading to massive congestion of in-bounds arriving with no gates available.

Actually, having worked through my fair share of these out-of-the-blue IROPS (the ones you can't prep for, like this or the ZAU fire) myself, I'd say a Sunday evening in January is about as "good" as it gets - both time of day and time of year. The vast majority of their international flights had already left their respective hubs, and Sundays are typically reduced schedules with lighter loads. The lack of gates could've been rectified by pushing back empty aircraft sitting on the gates, but as this wasn't foreseen I'm willing to bet the ground staffing was minimal at best. I'm not saying it's not a big deal - because it is - but if it "had" to happen, now is pretty much the best time for it.

I'm flying MEX-ATL-LGA-BOS in 9 hours...hopefully this isn't a bloodbath

CaliguyNYC wrote:

WE finally took of from ATL at 11:15pm. So glad. The one thing that is really crazy is why they didn't use stairs and buses to get pax of the planes that needed gates. Also the AA section of T terminal was empty. Why couldn't DL have used those gates. Surely the gates can be used in emergencies by any airline

If they are CU gates then perhaps the airport should have used them offload passengers. If the gates are leased and controlled by AA then they have no obligation to let DL use them. While this is a big inconvenience, it's not an emergency. Seeing as how DL cancelled their agreement with AA, I see no reason for AA to do anything to help them.

Add insult to injury. On board Delta 303 to San Jose. Now we are returning to ATL after flying all the way to Arkansas. 7 hours after scheduled departure we are scheduled to arrive back in Atlanta. Delta fails technically on the ground and in the air for this tired million miler.

ptcflyer wrote:

Add insult to injury. On board Delta 303 to San Jose. Now we are returning to ATL after flying all the way to Arkansas. 7 hours after scheduled departure we are scheduled to arrive back in Atlanta. Delta fails technically on the ground and in the air for this tired million miler.

Any reason? Crew would time out?

As much as I am a Delta loyalist.... this is complete FUBAR situation when an IT system grounds EVERYTHING.

I am just glad planes can stay up in the air when Delta/.com goes down.

Why couldn't they use stairs to get people off the plane?

MCO was rough, the 7pm flight to DTW got canceled.

FIXing to land with control issues. Nothing threatening. But they could not make it to SJC. Pilots are really frustrated at failing to get us there.

Why do these outages seem to happen with US airlines? Is their IT really that crap?

Mike1212 wrote:

Seems like airlines are having a lot of IT issues lately. Maybe executives should invest some money on that rather then stock buybacks and dividends?

I wonder how many of these airlines have outsourced parts of their IT?
IT is always considered a cost center to be cut until people realize it keeps the company going.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

WE finally took of from ATL at 11:15pm. So glad. The one thing that is really crazy is why they didn't use stairs and buses to get pax of the planes that needed gates. Also the AA section of T terminal was empty. Why couldn't DL have used those gates. Surely the gates can be used in emergencies by any airline

Stairs/buses could be possible, but it's logistically extremely difficult beyond one or two aircraft. Other airline gates are the same.. and that's only if the other airline gives permission.

Last weekend I was involved with a UA ground stop. I asked the gate attendant if a ground stop delay was in the same category as a mechanical delay, i.e., the airline will put you up in a hotel if your itinerary is messed up. I was told no. It is in the same category as a weather delay. That seems bogus to me. I wonder if DL is putting up people in hotels tonight?

A few people have mentioned that airlines need to get new IT systems, which is fair. However, its not that easy to completely scrap and replace current systems given their size and complexity. I'm sure the airlines are working to make sure that these issues don't happen (as they shouldn't), but for the most part they are reliable. It will be interesting to know what brought it down this time.

https://xkcd.com/927/

Our 7 pm departure from ATL to SJC after a flight and return due to mechanical issue over Arkansas is now scheduled to depart at 4:00 am. (We think). Delta has no one who knows anything. I get Delta texts every ten minutes with different times and gates. We have been 3 1/2 hours on plane waiting at gate, 1 hour at the gate after a deplane, and 2 hours in the air and I am sitting exactly 3 gates down from where I was sitting at 5:30 pm yesterday.

ptcflyer wrote:

Our 7 pm departure from ATL to SJC after a flight and return due to mechanical issue over Arkansas is now scheduled to depart at 4:00 am. (We think). Delta has no one who knows anything. I get Delta texts every ten minutes with different times and gates. We have been 3 1/2 hours on plane waiting at gate, 1 hour at the gate after a deplane, and 2 hours in the air and I am sitting exactly 3 gates down from where I was sitting at 5:30 pm yesterday.

But hey, it didn't cancel...

MaksFly wrote:

Why couldn't they use stairs to get people off the plane?

US airports don't have all that many buses or stairs. Apparently the US populace finds them unacceptable and would never fly on the airline using them ever again.

Website's back up

ASFlyer wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

Our 7 pm departure from ATL to SJC after a flight and return due to mechanical issue over Arkansas is now scheduled to depart at 4:00 am. (We think). Delta has no one who knows anything. I get Delta texts every ten minutes with different times and gates. We have been 3 1/2 hours on plane waiting at gate, 1 hour at the gate after a deplane, and 2 hours in the air and I am sitting exactly 3 gates down from where I was sitting at 5:30 pm yesterday.

But hey, it didn't cancel...

Unfortunately after making us hang around the gate another hour. We got word at 3:15 that it cancelled. 12 hours of my life I will never get back.

MrBretz wrote:

Last weekend I was involved with a UA ground stop. I asked the gate attendant if a ground stop delay was in the same category as a mechanical delay, i.e., the airline will put you up in a hotel if your itinerary is messed up. I was told no. It is in the same category as a weather delay. That seems bogus to me. I wonder if DL is putting up people in hotels tonight?

Wonder where that UA agent got that info. Things under the airline's control, and IT definitely is, are supposed to be 'payable'; i.e. Provide hotel, meals. DL should be likewise in this instance. Now if there is not sufficient hotel space available for everyone, that's the catch 22.

“I want to apologize to all of our customers who have been impacted by this frustrating situation,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “This type of disruption is not acceptable to the Delta family who prides itself on reliability and customer service. I also want to thank our employees who are working tirelessly to accommodate our customers.”

Boy, does that sound familiar.

ptcflyer wrote:

ASFlyer wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

Our 7 pm departure from ATL to SJC after a flight and return due to mechanical issue over Arkansas is now scheduled to depart at 4:00 am. (We think). Delta has no one who knows anything. I get Delta texts every ten minutes with different times and gates. We have been 3 1/2 hours on plane waiting at gate, 1 hour at the gate after a deplane, and 2 hours in the air and I am sitting exactly 3 gates down from where I was sitting at 5:30 pm yesterday.

But hey, it didn't cancel...

Unfortunately after making us hang around the gate another hour. We got word at 3:15 that it cancelled. 12 hours of my life I will never get back.

Hey but Delta loves you and they are really sorry for your inconvenience so it's all good in the eyes of the Delta fanboys. So keep booking those Delta flights through their mega Atlanta hub. It's amazing the karma that was associated with not allowing one A380 to use a gate to deplane.

RIP to the no cancelled flights thing they like to do.

ikolkyo wrote:

RIP to the no cancelled flights thing they like to do.

Nah, just be ready for a fine print caveat like "excluding extraordinary events..."

iahcsr wrote:

MrBretz wrote:

Last weekend I was involved with a UA ground stop. I asked the gate attendant if a ground stop delay was in the same category as a mechanical delay, i.e., the airline will put you up in a hotel if your itinerary is messed up. I was told no. It is in the same category as a weather delay. That seems bogus to me. I wonder if DL is putting up people in hotels tonight?

Wonder where that UA agent got that info. Things under the airline's control, and IT definitely is, are supposed to be 'payable'; i.e. Provide hotel, meals. DL should be likewise in this instance. Now if there is not sufficient hotel space available for everyone, that's the catch 22.

Depends on the type of ground stop. Some of the ground stops are weather on top of IT issues causing a mess.

klm617 wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

ASFlyer wrote:

But hey, it didn't cancel...

Unfortunately after making us hang around the gate another hour. We got word at 3:15 that it cancelled. 12 hours of my life I will never get back.

Hey but Delta loves you and they are really sorry for your inconvenience so it's all good in the eyes of the Delta fanboys. So keep booking those Delta flights through their mega Atlanta hub. It's amazing the karma that was associated with not allowing one A380 to use a gate to deplane.

I'm pretty sure that even to DL fanboys its not all good. I am probably one of the biggest fanboys and I find this completely and totally reprehensible. There is no verifiable defense. DL dropped the ball and deserves all the criticism in the world for when they screw up. I believe the cancellations # in the hundreds between yesterday and today so for those that think DL will just delay the crap out of flights, think again.

klm617 wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

ASFlyer wrote:

But hey, it didn't cancel...

Unfortunately after making us hang around the gate another hour. We got word at 3:15 that it cancelled. 12 hours of my life I will never get back.

Hey but Delta loves you and they are really sorry for your inconvenience so it's all good in the eyes of the Delta fanboys. So keep booking those Delta flights through their mega Atlanta hub. It's amazing the karma that was associated with not allowing one A380 to use a gate to deplane.

Ironically, I had the best flight of my life on that particular flight on my way to Kathmandu. Boarding stairs and all.

I thought these things could never, ever happen at DL....if they cannot get their computers to work, I cannot think of any redeeming reason to ever fly on DL!

I wonder if the app is still having issues, I couldn't do an OLCI this morning at 24h before departure.

ptcflyer wrote:

klm617 wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

Unfortunately after making us hang around the gate another hour. We got word at 3:15 that it cancelled. 12 hours of my life I will never get back.

Hey but Delta loves you and they are really sorry for your inconvenience so it's all good in the eyes of the Delta fanboys. So keep booking those Delta flights through their mega Atlanta hub. It's amazing the karma that was associated with not allowing one A380 to use a gate to deplane.

Ironically, I had the best flight of my life on that particular flight on my way to Kathmandu. Boarding stairs and all.

Weather fine, planes maintained, crew able, airport clear. And all crippled by bad IT. Why aren't the CEOs of all this dysfunction called in to a working congressional committee to explain what they are doing about it, why they should not have to cooperate in assisting passengers. Any why isn't there default IT to keep the system going. At least the system copes with planes in the air (but is this next?)

When the system crashes, somehow at least for domestic the crash seems total. Are there no ways pieces of the system could have enough backup that flights could be continued with paper, or partially paper documentation.

ps 'We apologize for any inconvenience.' Why are there so many idiots in public relations, surely they know that there were, in fact, inconveniences, boatloads of them. Replace 'any' with 'the'. A small point but it tells us a lot.

IADCA wrote:

Nah, just be ready for a fine print caveat like "excluding extraordinary events..."

The fine print is good for a laugh. I think most people figured out that Delta's self-proclaimed operational superiority is a joke back in August. Early in the month they practically shut the airline down for 3 days and cancelled over 2,300 flights. By the end of August they were claiming another month at the top.

And we continue to read and hear "the on time machine", "100 perfect days (not in a row)", "brand perfect", "we're canceling cancellations", "100% completion rate" and all the other funny stuff.

IPFreely wrote:

IADCA wrote:

Nah, just be ready for a fine print caveat like "excluding extraordinary events..."

The fine print is good for a laugh. I think most people figured out that Delta's self-proclaimed operational superiority is a joke back in August. Early in the month they practically shut the airline down for 3 days and cancelled over 2,300 flights. By the end of August they were claiming another month at the top.

And we continue to read and hear "the on time machine", "100 perfect days (not in a row)", "brand perfect", "we're canceling cancellations", "100% completion rate" and all the other funny stuff.

Pile it on. This time I'm with you. I wonder how they will spin the event. Blame it all on January so they can start out with another perfect stretch in February?

Is there any other department/division/corporate area at Delta that can shut down the entire airline other than IT?

What did Delta learn from the August fiasco about having redundant systems ready to switch over at millisecond speed?

Maybe they need to get Boeing or Airbus to plan and run their operating system.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Weather fine, planes maintained, crew able, airport clear. And all crippled by bad IT. Why aren't the CEOs of all this dysfunction called in to a working congressional committee to explain what they are doing about it, why they should not have to cooperate in assisting passengers. Any why isn't there default IT to keep the system going. At least the system copes with planes in the air (but is this next?)

When the system crashes, somehow at least for domestic the crash seems total. Are there no ways pieces of the system could have enough backup that flights could be continued with paper, or partially paper documentation.

ps 'We apologize for any inconvenience.' Why are there so many idiots in public relations, surely they know that there were, in fact, inconveniences, boatloads of them. Replace 'any' with 'the'. A small point but it tells us a lot.

I am not defending Delta, but I have noticed that airlines tend to have larger in house IT departments than most industries so it is not a lack of trying. There are a number of critical functions that will grind the airline to a halt. Reservations and dispatch all have backup systems, but these too seem to fail all to often. This happens to many different airlines. IT is a huge expense and there seems to be no way to be perfect and prevent failures impacting operations 100% of the time. I know of one airline with two completely independent operations centers that are located in different states and are 100% able to backup the other, but even they have had total IT crashes.

Newbiepilot wrote:

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Weather fine, planes maintained, crew able, airport clear. And all crippled by bad IT. Why aren't the CEOs of all this dysfunction called in to a working congressional committee to explain what they are doing about it, why they should not have to cooperate in assisting passengers. Any why isn't there default IT to keep the system going. At least the system copes with planes in the air (but is this next?)

When the system crashes, somehow at least for domestic the crash seems total. Are there no ways pieces of the system could have enough backup that flights could be continued with paper, or partially paper documentation.

ps 'We apologize for any inconvenience.' Why are there so many idiots in public relations, surely they know that there were, in fact, inconveniences, boatloads of them. Replace 'any' with 'the'. A small point but it tells us a lot.

I am not defending Delta, but I have noticed that airlines tend to have larger in house IT departments than most industries so it is not a lack of trying. There are a number of critical functions that will grind the airline to a halt. Reservations and dispatch all have backup systems, but these too seem to fail all to often. This happens to many different airlines. IT is a huge expense and there seems to be no way to be perfect and prevent failures impacting operations 100% of the time. I know of one airline with two completely independent operations centers that are located in different states and are 100% able to backup the other, but even they have had total IT crashes.

Then maybe they need to invest their time more in their IT departments instead of cramping more seats in their planes and where the ME3 is going to fly next. One must have their own house in order before they cry wolf that they are unfairly treated and are at a competitive disadvantage. The ego at this company amazes me. I have been one of the customers who has been stranded by Delta before and I'm sorry an "I'm Sorry" just don't cut it when you have all kinds of condition of travel where the consumer has very little leverage when the is an issue getting you to you final destination. Delta waits for no man but you are expected to accept an "We're sorry" when they screw up and people still defend this business model SMH. Perhaps if they hadn't bought out all this airlines then their IT department wouldn't be so huge that it is on the verge of not being able to be controlled. I have no sympathy for them but do feel for the employees that are always left holding the bag.

So, question here - since VS has moved onto AIR4 (SNAPP, Deltamatic, etc.), were they out also during this outage?

frmrCapCadet wrote:

Why aren't the CEOs of all this dysfunction called in to a working congressional committee to explain what they are doing about it, why they should not have to cooperate in assisting passengers.

If only someone in congress were willing to grandstand, then surely everything would be better, right?

When the system crashes, somehow at least for domestic the crash seems total. Are there no ways pieces of the system could have enough backup that flights could be continued with paper, or partially paper documentation.

I don't have any particular insight into airlines' IT, but I'd be pretty shocked if this were really the case. It's just that when something fails and the backup kicks in right away as designed, the public never hears about it. Just about every mid- to large-size organization face far more IT failures that are smoothed over by built-in redundancies than the huge outages we hear about. Constantly generating paper backup and maintaining staffing to switch over to paper management in case of an outage would be outrageously expensive and significantly less reliable than IT systems.

BobPatterson wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

IADCA wrote:

Nah, just be ready for a fine print caveat like "excluding extraordinary events..."

The fine print is good for a laugh. I think most people figured out that Delta's self-proclaimed operational superiority is a joke back in August. Early in the month they practically shut the airline down for 3 days and cancelled over 2,300 flights. By the end of August they were claiming another month at the top.

And we continue to read and hear "the on time machine", "100 perfect days (not in a row)", "brand perfect", "we're canceling cancellations", "100% completion rate" and all the other funny stuff.

Pile it on. This time I'm with you. I wonder how they will spin the event. Blame it all on January so they can start out with another perfect stretch in February?

Is there any other department/division/corporate area at Delta that can shut down the entire airline other than IT?

What did Delta learn from the August fiasco about having redundant systems ready to switch over at millisecond speed?

Maybe they need to get Boeing or Airbus to plan and run their operating system.

Funny how some never see the BS. I was standing on my soapbox saying their chest pounding propaganda was BS and I was called a troll over and over looks like Delta proved for all of us that they aren't as they try to make people think. This is an airline that is run by ego with little or no regard for the customer experience that is below business class fare if anything we should be thanking Delta that they even are willing to transport those people that payless that premium fares.

While I was impacted yesterday for 12 hours due to the Technology Crash, and subsequent mechanical diversion back to Atlanta, it really hit me how Delta has lost the personal touch to dealing with their frequent fliers and all passengers. We arrived after 2 hours in the air after a diversion. They knew we would be back for over an hour. There was only 1 agent who knew absolutely nothing. No team to greet, help with accommodations or provide even the slightest information.

The gate agents today just push the buttons on the computer... and scan the boarding passes. For the most part, I do not even sense politeness in their interaction. There is little buy in to make the passengers experience better. Delta is now a technology company with McDonald's type employees who mechanically interact with the technology with very little lateral power or interest in using any discretion to help passengers in any non-standard way. This is a far cry from the true Red Coat Professionalism of the past.

Last night, passengers options were: Wait in a long line for a black phone to "rebook".... where waits for an agent were over 1/2 hour. Check their status on the phone for an automated rebooking for 2 days later. Call Delta directly with over a 2 hour wait time. The line at the Delta terminal check in desks were easily over an hour to two hours long. This was at 3:30 a.m. Hotels were promised but no one was there to provide information or triage passenger situations. I saw women in tears. Others were just exhausted.

While the technology is great and when it works everyone is happy. While watching the breakdown in operations due to technology problems is sad, but, maybe understandable.... watching an organization deal with the ramifications of the former with employees ll equipped to deal with people as people was a travesty. Delta has lost the human touch. And it becomes so obvious during situations as last night!

ptcflyer wrote:

While I was impacted yesterday for 12 hours due to the Technology Crash, and subsequent mechanical diversion back to Atlanta, it really hit me how Delta has lost the personal touch to dealing with their frequent fliers and all passengers. We arrived after 2 hours in the air after a diversion. They knew we would be back for over an hour. There was only 1 agent who knew absolutely nothing. No team to greet, help with accommodations or provide even the slightest information.

The gate agents today just push the buttons on the computer... and scan the boarding passes. For the most part, I do not even sense politeness in their interaction. There is little buy in to make the passengers experience better. Delta is now a technology company with McDonald's type employees who mechanically interact with the technology with very little lateral power or interest in using any discretion to help passengers in any non-standard way. This is a far cry from the true Red Coat Professionalism of the past.

Last night, passengers options were: Wait in a long line for a black phone to "rebook".... where waits for an agent were over 1/2 hour. Check their status on the phone for an automated rebooking for 2 days later. Call Delta directly with over a 2 hour wait time. The line at the Delta terminal check in desks were easily over an hour to two hours long. This was at 3:30 a.m. Hotels were promised but no one was there to provide information or triage passenger situations. I saw women in tears. Others were just exhausted.

While the technology is great and when it works everyone is happy. While watching the breakdown in operations due to technology problems is sad, but, maybe understandable.... watching an organization deal with the ramifications of the former with employees ll equipped to deal with people as people was a travesty. Delta has lost the human touch. And it becomes so obvious during situations as last night!

And this is all at Delta's premiere hub. You can give me all the on time states you want but what does Delta do when things go wrong and the answer to that is not really much. I experienced the same level of incompetence from the Atlanta CSAs in my travels through Atlanta when my travel was disrupted through no fault of my own. I want to see stats saying how many passengers are displaced through Delta service issues then we have a real indicator how well their doing. Then as you say it's a 2 day wait to get a flight you are better off in most cases renting a car to complete your journey.

This happened later on Sunday night and the line was at 3:30a. There were likely 1000's of people affected. Sometimes there's just not a lot you will be able to do whether anyone likes it or not. Im sure it could have gone better but I don't know as though it's really indicative of a bigger problem.

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

jumbojet wrote:

I'm pretty sure that even to DL fanboys its not all good. I am probably one of the biggest fanboys and I find this completely and totally reprehensible. There is no verifiable defense. DL dropped the ball and deserves all the criticism in the world for when they screw up. I believe the cancellations # in the hundreds between yesterday and today so for those that think DL will just delay the crap out of flights, think again.

Yep, I'm totally with you. I'm a big DL fan, but I also agree (based on everything I've heard, read, etc) that it seems like they've lost the plot. I would've expected better from DL in a situation like this.

klm617 wrote:

It's amazing the karma that was associated with not allowing one A380 to use a gate to deplane.

What was the karma???

klm617 wrote:

ptcflyer wrote:

While I was impacted yesterday for 12 hours due to the Technology Crash, and subsequent mechanical diversion back to Atlanta, it really hit me how Delta has lost the personal touch to dealing with their frequent fliers and all passengers. We arrived after 2 hours in the air after a diversion. They knew we would be back for over an hour. There was only 1 agent who knew absolutely nothing. No team to greet, help with accommodations or provide even the slightest information.

The gate agents today just push the buttons on the computer... and scan the boarding passes. For the most part, I do not even sense politeness in their interaction. There is little buy in to make the passengers experience better. Delta is now a technology company with McDonald's type employees who mechanically interact with the technology with very little lateral power or interest in using any discretion to help passengers in any non-standard way. This is a far cry from the true Red Coat Professionalism of the past.

Last night, passengers options were: Wait in a long line for a black phone to "rebook".... where waits for an agent were over 1/2 hour. Check their status on the phone for an automated rebooking for 2 days later. Call Delta directly with over a 2 hour wait time. The line at the Delta terminal check in desks were easily over an hour to two hours long. This was at 3:30 a.m. Hotels were promised but no one was there to provide information or triage passenger situations. I saw women in tears. Others were just exhausted.

While the technology is great and when it works everyone is happy. While watching the breakdown in operations due to technology problems is sad, but, maybe understandable.... watching an organization deal with the ramifications of the former with employees ll equipped to deal with people as people was a travesty. Delta has lost the human touch. And it becomes so obvious during situations as last night!

And this is all at Delta's premiere hub. You can give me all the on time states you want but what does Delta do when things go wrong and the answer to that is not really much. I experienced the same level of incompetence from the Atlanta CSAs in my travels through Atlanta when my travel was disrupted through no fault of my own. I want to see stats saying how many passengers are displaced through Delta service issues then we have a real indicator how well their doing. Then as you say it's a 2 day wait to get a flight you are better off in most cases renting a car to complete your journey.

Airlines as a whole need to invest in stronger IROP management. The amount of time it takes to rebook a passenger, book a hotel, and give the customer food vouchers is so cumbersome that fleetwide disruptions will pretty much melt down the strongest airline. It'll take a huge investment across the industry as a whole just to streamline interline IROPs alone but its long overdue. The system today doesn't work with any sort of scale.

I would say that airlines are spending a lot in IROP management. Some are doing better than others. Ideally the airlines app and reservation syste, will allow everything to be rescheduled without ever talking to a person. Airlines are getting better, but if you don't have the app or access to the website, it can be difficult. If the whole reservation system collapses then well apps and automated rebooking will not help.

I recently had a trip where due to weather it was going to cause a misconnect. Onboard the airplane I knew I would miss the connection. Unfortunately I could not rebook my flight online on deltas website. The website would find open seats but the reservation could not be rebooked. It required calling an agent, which is basically impossible on board. This is an example of where Delta needs to improve the reservations system.

I had pretty much the exact same thing happen on a different US airline. The app already had a flight rebooked plus an option to switch to another nearby city on an earlier flight if I wanted. All could be done without talking to an agent.

That is a small example, but there are ways for airlines to improve IT. Both reliability of the system and also capability of the system to handle problems is where investment is valuable.

klakzky123 wrote:

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

I'd be curious to know what went wrong here. As I recall, the last outage was a physical IT issue with a power outage or something like that.

I still wonder why (or when) an airline might consider moving their infrastructure to a cloud provider like AWS. Yes, the mainframes that run things are really embedded, but it seems as if moving to just handling the highest level is where airline IT can provide value. This of course doesn't (and shouldn't) be a "big bang" process. Move a piece here and there and learn.

While I was researching this, I ran across an article on Qantas's migration of parts of their site to the cloud.

USAirKid wrote:

klakzky123 wrote:

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

I'd be curious to know what went wrong here. As I recall, the last outage was a physical IT issue with a power outage or something like that.

I still wonder why (or when) an airline might consider moving their infrastructure to a cloud provider like AWS. Yes, the mainframes that run things are really embedded, but it seems as if moving to just handling the highest level is where airline IT can provide value. This of course doesn't (and shouldn't) be a "big bang" process. Move a piece here and there and learn.

While I was researching this, I ran across an article on Qantas's migration of parts of their site to the cloud.

I haven't read the article yet but parts of their website and their IT Infrastructure are apples and oranges. They probably have not moved to AWS or similar cloud system because that would take control out of their hands of their servers. That may seem like a great blessing passing it to someone who all they do is that, but what if something happens that takes out AWS, it's designed not to but that does not mean it won't happen someday. At that point they are as dead in the water as they would be now but there is not a thing you can do about it. They are completely dependent on AWS to resolve the issue and there is no guarantee that their servers would be the first ones they would be working on as there would be hundreds of companies that would be affected.

(Well why don't they make a backup server on Azure or on site). All three of those systems runs completely different and for all the money and effort needed to make the system fail over to completely different server architecture, your probably better off just building redundant independent servers on premise designed for this purpose. Why haven't they done this already?, really only their network architects can say as they know the system but I am going to take a stab that a good portion of it is firstly the enormity of migrating an entire infrastructure to such a system and to do it with no or only a few hours of downtime. And secondly making systems do what they are not inherently designed to do. Is seems a lot of stuff in business that is new and modern are still derivatives of the same systems used in the 80s and 90s.

klakzky123 wrote:

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

I don't agree with that logic because using the same line of thinking then Delta sucks at maintenance because they do it themselves (effectively) instead of outsourcing to Boeing/Airbus since they made the aircraft and thus would be able to fix it better than Delta ever could. If your company becomes the size of a Delta then you by nessesity have to become an IT company because else wise means your running inefficiently due to lack of autonomy compared to your peers or you have left your company be at the mercy of another entity.

Delta's IT Department I bet is as big as their aircraft maintenance department and again I bet they employ multiple people for each system in their IT Infrastructure that know how those systems inside and out, with probably the only people more knowledgeable than them would be the engineers that built it in first place, and those are not the guys that would be answering the bat-phone initially when the system went down, regardless if they outsourced it to that original company.

Sitting on a delta connection flight as I type this. Just got an announcement from the captain that they are unable to calculate v speeds or w&b on board and ordinarily they'd call dispatch for that data but they can't get it from dispatch either as the system is down network wide. Lingering gremlins from Sunday or is this something different. (Republic is operating the flight)

apfpilot wrote:

Sitting on a delta connection flight as I type this. Just got an announcement from the captain that they are unable to calculate v speeds or w&b on board and ordinarily they'd call dispatch for that data but they can't get it from dispatch either as the system is down network wide. Lingering gremlins from Sunday or is this something different. (Republic is operating the flight)

Republic, as well as all the other regionals, have their own IT systems for their flight ops.

Because those gates are AA's and DL would have to contact AA and pay AA for the use of the gate, plus they have AA computer systems at the gate and not DL, so DL would not be able to process passengers at AA's gates.

klakzky123 wrote:

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

That's an interesting thesis. Do WN and UA have all IT in-house, too?

USAirKid wrote:

klakzky123 wrote:

This is the downside to managing all IT in house. Delta isn't an IT company and all of the little things like IT disaster recovery, backups, contingencies, etc.. are hard to do when they most likely aren't equipped and staffed for that.

Taking all IT in house has let Delta be extra agile an innovative with its products but it comes at a price when you aren't equipped for meltdowns. Airline IT companies specialize in this stuff and have contracts with airlines that shift liability for these sorts of things onto the IT provider. Delta didn't have that luxury so in addition to being unprepared, they get to own all liability. I realize outsourcing IT to an airline IT provider is expensive but this stuff can get so debilitating that whatever cost savings Delta made by doing this in house just evaporated.

I'd be curious to know what went wrong here. As I recall, the last outage was a physical IT issue with a power outage or something like that.

I still wonder why (or when) an airline might consider moving their infrastructure to a cloud provider like AWS. Yes, the mainframes that run things are really embedded, but it seems as if moving to just handling the highest level is where airline IT can provide value. This of course doesn't (and shouldn't) be a "big bang" process. Move a piece here and there and learn.

While I was researching this, I ran across an article on Qantas's migration of parts of their site to the cloud.

DL claimed the last outage was due to a power failure, yet that was a lie as the power company came out and said there was no power failure at all.