I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

Wish you all the best...

I wonder why do only US airlines face computer issues.. You need better techies

This is a misleading headline. Flights are not grounded, and to my knowledge, were not ever grounded. Some flights are/were experiencing delays but the problem has since been rectified.

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

If you end up missing your flight, you could always try to do the DEN-NRT and go NRT-ICN on ANA

caverunner17 wrote:

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

If you end up missing your flight, you could always try to do the DEN-NRT and go NRT-ICN on ANA

UA operates NRT-ICN themselves as well, and it connects westbound.

I'm told the system that generates flight plans is the issue.

panam330 wrote:

caverunner17 wrote:

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

If you end up missing your flight, you could always try to do the DEN-NRT and go NRT-ICN on ANA

UA operates NRT-ICN themselves as well, and it connects westbound.

Just get rebooked on to Asiana.

flyguy84 wrote:

panam330 wrote:

caverunner17 wrote:

If you end up missing your flight, you could always try to do the DEN-NRT and go NRT-ICN on ANA

UA operates NRT-ICN themselves as well, and it connects westbound.

Just get rebooked on to Asiana.

I think their flight is only an hour after the UA one -- It would depend on how long the ground stop is for UA, otherwise I'd rather get to NRT and have a lot more options from there.

flyguy84 wrote:

This is a misleading headline. Flights are not grounded, and to my knowledge, were not ever grounded. Some flights are/were experiencing delays but the problem has since been rectified.

And you would be incorrect. Sabre is down, and resulting in delays. We are deplaning.

EssentialBusDC wrote:

flyguy84 wrote:

This is a misleading headline. Flights are not grounded, and to my knowledge, were not ever grounded. Some flights are/were experiencing delays but the problem has since been rectified.

There is no groundstop. Some flights are departing (on-time) and some are experiencing delays. There is ongoing latency in the flight planning system. It was believed to have been corrected.

EssentialBusDC wrote:

flyguy84 wrote:

This is a misleading headline. Flights are not grounded, and to my knowledge, were not ever grounded. Some flights are/were experiencing delays but the problem has since been rectified.

And you would be incorrect. Sabre is down, and resulting in delays. We are deplaning.

I thought UA uses SHARES. Sabre is used by AA.

And you would be incorrect. Sabre is down, and resulting in delays. We are deplaning.[/quote]

I thought UA uses SHARES. Sabre is used by AA.[/quote]


Sabre also has flight planning software

N383SW wrote:

And you would be incorrect. Sabre is down, and resulting in delays. We are deplaning.

I thought UA uses SHARES. Sabre is used by AA.[/quote]


Sabre also has flight planning software[/quote]

Okay, I guess I must have confused their flight planning software with their reservation system.

Does seem there have been a spate of computer problems with airlines in the US, a third party testing their hacking skills perhaps?

readytotaxi wrote:

Does seem there have been a spate of computer problems with airlines in the US, a third party testing their hacking skills perhaps?

Probably more along the lines of companies whole systems being based on 1970s technology.

panam330 wrote:

caverunner17 wrote:

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

If you end up missing your flight, you could always try to do the DEN-NRT and go NRT-ICN on ANA

UA operates NRT-ICN themselves as well, and it connects westbound.

ANA actually doesn't operate NRT-ICN (only from HND) which is why ICN is the only beyond-NRT flight UA flies now.

Just to clarify something here. United uses a version of Sabre Dispatch Manager as their flight planning system, which is the system formerly known as borneman and is used by most of the nations regional carriers as well as JetBlue. The system is a GUI based program. American uses Sabre DECS, which is a text based flight planning system that dates back to the origins of SABRE and is tied into Sabre RES in a lot of ways. DECS is much older than Dispatch Manager but seems to fail far less often, which is why United seems to have more of these problems. These outages are very common at the regionals as well.

American has been trying to replace DECS with a Jeppesen product for years, but the new system has not shown the reliability that's DECS has.

wow, yet another major outage.

apodino wrote:

Just to clarify something here. United uses a version of Sabre Dispatch Manager as their flight planning system, which is the system formerly known as borneman and is used by most of the nations regional carriers as well as JetBlue.

Actually no. United uses the modern 4D flight planning system formerly known as f:wz from Austria that Sabre acquired in 2010. No relations whatsoever to Borneman.

https://www.sabre.com/insights/releases ... mpany-fwz/

I think US airlines need to make a significant long term investment in their IT systems...

United787 wrote:

I think US airlines need to make a significant long term investment in their IT systems...

Oscar spoke about it only two-weeks ago. Easier said then done.

United CEO: There’s No Quick Fix for Airline IT Systems
https://skift.com/2017/01/30/united-ceo ... t-systems/

Update. We sat on the plane for an hour and a half. I elected to get off at that point. I could have gotten off sooner. They said we could get back on at any time and they would make an announcement.

About that time, United Global Services called my cell phone and asked me if they could rebook me on the DEN-NRT flight. That's fine I said, but I did purchase a first class ticket on a 3-class aircraft, to which they agreed on my point and are working on a refund of the cabin difference.

The 2nd problem is that my luggage was on the 777 headed to SFO, where I was to make the connection to the ICN flight, and because luggage is held in a container on that aircraft, they can't transfer it to my new DEN-NRT flight.

So I'm sitting up here in the United Lounge, where I just saw my SFO flight pull away from the gate...with my luggage. The original flight to SFO will arrive after the ICN flight departs, so I'm not sure how my luggage is getting to Seoul, or when. Everyone with United has been super kind however.

Oh well. It's all about life experiences.

United continues to operate and some flights are experiencing delays. At no point was the operation grounded nor was the system entirely down. There are/were some latency issues that caused certain information to not be transmitted or transmitted at a very delayed pace.

The original word from the cockpit was that it was a nationwide outage and no one could get flight plans. They had no idea when the issue would be fixed. At one point they said they saw it coming back up but it failed again.

anshabhi wrote:

777222LR wrote:

I'm currently on my way to Seoul - and I'm stuck in Denver sitting on a 777 bound for SFO. I have a tight connection to Seoul at SFO.

Wish you all the best...

I wonder why do only US airlines face computer issues.. You need better techies

A friend of my wife's, who is an IT project manager, worked at UA on a consulting assignment. She couldn't believe how unproductive their IT employees were. It seemed like the main activity was looking through loads to see which flights would be best to travel for a weekend as a non-rev.

I can't remember the exact time frame, but it was several years before Smisek was forced to resign

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

Aesma wrote:

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

Its alot more complicated than you think in terms of filing a alternate, planning altitudes.

Side note, OKC-DEN was one of the most turbulent flights I've been on. Clear skies however.

Aesma wrote:

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

The added workload that would put on ATC would cause some significant stress to the system. Automation is what has allowed the system to cope with the volume of flights we now see. Whenever a system has to revert from a method with automation to a non-automated method, everything has a tendency to turn to custard. It's usually easier and more efficient to simply wait for the system to come back online and resume operations as normal.

LAXintl wrote:

apodino wrote:

Just to clarify something here. United uses a version of Sabre Dispatch Manager as their flight planning system, which is the system formerly known as borneman and is used by most of the nations regional carriers as well as JetBlue.

Actually no. United uses the modern 4D flight planning system formerly known as f:wz from Austria that Sabre acquired in 2010. No relations whatsoever to Borneman.

https://www.sabre.com/insights/releases ... mpany-fwz/

Then after purchase Sabre renamed it FPM - Flight Plan Manager.

LAXintl wrote:

United787 wrote:

I think US airlines need to make a significant long term investment in their IT systems...

Oscar spoke about it only two-weeks ago. Easier said then done.

United CEO: There’s No Quick Fix for Airline IT Systems
https://skift.com/2017/01/30/united-ceo ... t-systems/

Sometimes the right decisions are the hardest decisions. I understand it would be a long process and not without hiccups to introduce a new computer system for such a large company...but in the long-term, it would be better. The current band-aid approach doesn't seem to be working...

The Flight Planning system is purchased through a vendor (SABRE FPM). Heard that SABRE did a software update on the hosting side last night that resulted in failure on the end user side today. This is system is robust and some of the latest offering available. It's not old tech. It's just new tech that SABRE quite often has difficulty supporting.

Aesma wrote:

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

Way too complicated, especially for a flight over the Rockies that requires drift down and terrain avoidance methods. Plus it's not as simple as just pulling up DUATS or ForeFlight and shooting off a flight plan, as nice as that would be.

Dumb question: who is SABRE main competitor?

ubeema wrote:

Dumb question: who is SABRE main competitor?

Probably LH Systems

ubeema wrote:

Dumb question: who is SABRE main competitor?

Not dumb at all. AVGEEKs should learn about Airline Res Systems.

The main competitor is Amadeus, which hosts most of world's largest network carriers. Sabre hosts a fair number of network guys as well as a few of the hybrids, some LCCs. Navitaire has most of the LCCs, ULCCs and a few hybrids.

Navitaire used to be owned by Accenture, but last fall, was sold to Amadeus.

IrishAyes wrote:

ubeema wrote:

Dumb question: who is SABRE main competitor?

Not dumb at all. AVGEEKs should learn about Airline Res Systems.

The main competitor is Amadeus, which hosts most of world's largest network carriers. Sabre hosts a fair number of network guys as well as a few of the hybrids, some LCCs. Navitaire has most of the LCCs, ULCCs and a few hybrids.

Navitaire used to be owned by Accenture, but last fall, was sold to Amadeus.

What about SHARES? Is it still around?

VS11 wrote:

IrishAyes wrote:

ubeema wrote:

Dumb question: who is SABRE main competitor?

Not dumb at all. AVGEEKs should learn about Airline Res Systems.

The main competitor is Amadeus, which hosts most of world's largest network carriers. Sabre hosts a fair number of network guys as well as a few of the hybrids, some LCCs. Navitaire has most of the LCCs, ULCCs and a few hybrids.

Navitaire used to be owned by Accenture, but last fall, was sold to Amadeus.

What about SHARES? Is it still around?

SHARES is UAs (and other airlines) reservation system....not to be confused with flight management systems.

United1 wrote:

VS11 wrote:

IrishAyes wrote:

Not dumb at all. AVGEEKs should learn about Airline Res Systems.

The main competitor is Amadeus, which hosts most of world's largest network carriers. Sabre hosts a fair number of network guys as well as a few of the hybrids, some LCCs. Navitaire has most of the LCCs, ULCCs and a few hybrids.

Navitaire used to be owned by Accenture, but last fall, was sold to Amadeus.

What about SHARES? Is it still around?

SHARES is UAs (and other airlines) reservation system....not to be confused with flight management systems.

Sure. But IrishAyes was talking about reservation systems hence my question. I have worked with SHARES myself.

United1 wrote:

VS11 wrote:

IrishAyes wrote:

Not dumb at all. AVGEEKs should learn about Airline Res Systems.

The main competitor is Amadeus, which hosts most of world's largest network carriers. Sabre hosts a fair number of network guys as well as a few of the hybrids, some LCCs. Navitaire has most of the LCCs, ULCCs and a few hybrids.

Navitaire used to be owned by Accenture, but last fall, was sold to Amadeus.

What about SHARES? Is it still around?

SHARES is UAs (and other airlines) reservation system....not to be confused with flight management systems.

Yes, SHARES is operated by HP. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/business-solut ... JuhF0UrJE4

So they've got the mouse running in the wheel again?

You have to wonder with all the IT issues if UA regrets going to SHARES instead of keeping APOLLO.

VS11 wrote:

United1 wrote:

VS11 wrote:

What about SHARES? Is it still around?

SHARES is UAs (and other airlines) reservation system....not to be confused with flight management systems.

Sure. But IrishAyes was talking about reservation systems hence my question. I have worked with SHARES myself.

I know was just pointing out that SHARES is not the system that glitched this morning as there usually is some confusion on that.

apodino wrote:

You have to wonder with all the IT issues if UA regrets going to SHARES instead of keeping APOLLO.

...probably not in this case as the system that glitched this morning was not related to SHARES or Apollo.

These all seem to be happening with a significantly greater frequency as of late... either that, or they're just being reported/publicized with more frequency.

Not to get all Alex Jones on anyone, but I do sometimes wonder if there's ever been an element of malicious intent in any of these.

Acey559 wrote:

Aesma wrote:

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

Way too complicated, especially for a flight over the Rockies that requires drift down and terrain avoidance methods. Plus it's not as simple as just pulling up DUATS or ForeFlight and shooting off a flight plan, as nice as that would be.

Its not legal to operate a Part 121 flight without the dispatcher issuing a release. The release includes the fuel, alternates, aircraft number, flight number and type of flight plan. There is a weather package required with the release. The flight plan determines a big part of the fuel requirements and thus gets sent and planned by the dispatcher as part of the release.

It is illegal for a pilot at an airline to depart without the dispatch release. The captain and dispatcher must sign the release.

If the flight planning system doesnt work, the airline cant operate new flights until the system works and the dispatcher can issue releases.

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

Aesma wrote:

Why can't pilots just ask for a fuel top up, file an approximate paper flight plan, and figure it out on the way ? I mean DEN-SFO shouldn't be that complicated !

Way too complicated, especially for a flight over the Rockies that requires drift down and terrain avoidance methods. Plus it's not as simple as just pulling up DUATS or ForeFlight and shooting off a flight plan, as nice as that would be.

Its not legal to operate a Part 121 flight without the dispatcher issuing a release. The release includes the fuel, alternates, aircraft number, flight number and type of flight plan. There is a weather package required with the release. The flight plan determines a big part of the fuel requirements and thus gets sent and planned by the dispatcher as part of the release.

It is illegal for a pilot at an airline to depart without the dispatch release. The captain and dispatcher must sign the release.

If the flight planning system doesnt work, the airline cant operate new flights until the system works and the dispatcher can issue releases.

Not entirely true. The Part 121 airline I currently fly for doesn't use dispatchers, we use a flight following service. All of the flight followers are licensed dispatchers (an internal company requirement), but they are not required to be licensed dispatchers outside of that company requirement.

You are correct that we require a dispatch release, and the parts that are required in said release. My post was simply to state that it wouldn't be possible for us to file our own flight plans because we don't have all of the fancy performance data, etc available to us, in addition to a whole host of other reasons not least of which is the fact that we have a ton of other stuff to do. It was overly simplistic and meant to be mildly facetious.

Acey559 wrote:

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

Way too complicated, especially for a flight over the Rockies that requires drift down and terrain avoidance methods. Plus it's not as simple as just pulling up DUATS or ForeFlight and shooting off a flight plan, as nice as that would be.

Its not legal to operate a Part 121 flight without the dispatcher issuing a release. The release includes the fuel, alternates, aircraft number, flight number and type of flight plan. There is a weather package required with the release. The flight plan determines a big part of the fuel requirements and thus gets sent and planned by the dispatcher as part of the release.

It is illegal for a pilot at an airline to depart without the dispatch release. The captain and dispatcher must sign the release.

If the flight planning system doesnt work, the airline cant operate new flights until the system works and the dispatcher can issue releases.

Not entirely true. The Part 121 airline I currently fly for doesn't use dispatchers, we use a flight following service. All of the flight followers are licensed dispatchers (an internal company requirement), but they are not required to be licensed dispatchers outside of that company requirement.

You are correct that we require a dispatch release, and the parts that are required in said release. My post was simply to state that it wouldn't be possible for us to file our own flight plans because we don't have all of the fancy performance data, etc available to us, in addition to a whole host of other reasons not least of which is the fact that we have a ton of other stuff to do. It was overly simplistic and meant to be mildly facetious.

You are correct Part 121 Supplemental operations dont require a dispatcher as operational control is between the PIC and Director of Ops. For Part 121 regularly scheduled airline passenger and cargo operations, a dispatcher is required and operational control held between the PIC and dispatcher as delegated by the certificate holder.

Acey559 wrote:

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Acey559 wrote:

You are correct that we require a dispatch release, and the parts that are required in said release. My post was simply to state that it wouldn't be possible for us to file our own flight plans because we don't have all of the fancy performance data, etc available to us, in addition to a whole host of other reasons not least of which is the fact that we have a ton of other stuff to do. It was overly simplistic and meant to be mildly facetious.

I have worked for a number of airlines including a legacy major and none have efficient back up systems. Some are pen and paper releases. A pilot can be trained to do these as a back in an up emergency. It would be more efficient for pilots to do it as one dispatcher usually has between 40-60 flights. The backup systems are not designed for a dispatcher to do more than 10-15 releases. This would mean the airline would have many flights it could not operate. Thus it is usually better to wait until IT fixes the problem than to cancel 80-90% of the operation. If pilots could do the flight planning as a backup it would actually be more efficient with the backups that most airlines have as each pilot could just plan his own flight. True there may be delays but if the airline could do it then it would.

I worked for a regional that trained its pilots how to do manual weight and balance calculations. We had a software outage and pilots were not able to do the manual weight and balance because the carrier had gotten rid of the authorization for them to do it on their own as it was seldom used. Like wise, there is no regulation or Ops Spec that allows pilots to do their own flight planning and releases as a backup in an emergency. Regulations and Ops Specs make it clear that a dispatcher must authorize a flight through the dispatch release for Part 121 regularly scheduled operations.

What these outages expose is how there is no good backup to the main flight planning systems at most if not all of the airlines. It also shows just how far behind most US based airlines are technology wise in both reservations and flight planning.