British Airways flights grounded due to glitch in flight planning app
- Reference: 1671544626
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/20/ba_flights_delayed/
- Source link:
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According to reports, overnight flights including some from the US were delayed for hours because of technical difficulties with flight planning. The problem has now been resolved, but it has resulted in delays to scheduled flights for which BA has issued an apology.
"Our teams have now resolved a temporary issue that affected some of our long-haul flight planning systems overnight, which resulted in delays to our schedule. We're sorry for the disruption caused to our customers' travel plans," the airline said in a statement sent to The Register .
According to Bloomberg, the problem stemmed from software that BA pilots access via Apple iPads, and said the system was in the process of being upgraded, citing "people familiar with the matter" who asked not to be identified.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 [2]tweeted : "Only about ~50 percent of scheduled flights are in the air (compared to same time last week), but flights across the system are now departing."
[3]
BA said that the majority of short-haul flights were unaffected by the issue, and was keen to point out that it was not a safety issue or technical fault with any of its aircraft.
[4]Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action
[5]First-ever orbital satellite launch from British soil will be delayed
[6]End of an era as the last 747 rolls off the production line
[7]Rolls-Royce, EasyJet fire up first hydrogen-fueled jet engine
BBC News reported that passengers were stuck waiting for several hours in airports such as John F Kennedy International, with flights eventually departing after long delays. Others claimed their flight had been sitting on the runway for hours before being moved back to the airport terminal.
One customer [8]took to Twitter to share that the captain of their flight had informed them that "flight computers have been down for two hours worldwide and no BA plane can file a flight plan? Seems not ideal. Anyway just chillin' on the tarmac here at JFK, being cool."
[9]
British Airways is part of International Airlines Group (IAG), a holding company that also controls Spain's Iberia and Ireland's Aer Lingus.
Back in September, Aer Lingus had its own [10]technical problems affecting flights when damage to a fiber optic cable combined with a hardware failure on an IT contractor's backup knocked out the airline's passenger processing system, causing it to cancel more than 50 flights. That contractor was Kyndryl, the former IT services division of IBM. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/24/airport_scanning_liquid_limit/
[2] https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1605082723185528833
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y6HqMOZp0DIfHGWv69CZmQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/15/musk_bans_elonjet_flight_tracker/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/firstever_orbital_satellite_launch_from/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/08/boeing_747_end/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/rollsroyce_easyjet_hydogen_engine/
[8] https://twitter.com/colindickey/status/1604998109473505281
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y6HqMOZp0DIfHGWv69CZmQAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/10/kyndryl_aer_lingus/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Strange time to do an upgrade
Isn't it Xmas Freeze time due to peak passenger volumes?
FYI:
BA Flight plans used to be done in-house decades ago on a system called SWORD. I worked with some of the guys - very professional.
Re: Strange time to do an upgrade
I've mainly worked in banking and yeah, December changes tended to be verboten for obvious reasons - no-one wants the headlines "Xmas shoppers with $BANK unable to make purchases". That said, provided someone could shout loud enough and make a good enough case, changes did occasionally get through although it generally needed an extra sign off from a relevant manager. Wouldn't surprise me if the same happens at BA, especially if someone's bonus depended on project completion by a certain date, or the project team was due to disband at the end of the year and no-one was willing to sign off the extension.
Failsafe
So... a critical piece of infrastructure went down, halting operations worldwide, and there was no failsafe? No backup plan, no alternative to having thousand of people sitting on the tarmac in cramped seats. Lovely.
Over to you, Sean Doyle, CEO and Chairman:
"...This is why we want to make every trip you take with us a great experience. Our entire team is here to provide exceptional service – from our signature warm welcome to ensuring that you arrive at your destination safely.
Nice, but arriving safely is a pretty low bar for a mission statement.
https://www.britishairways.com/en-nl/information/about-ba?source=BOT_about_ba
Re: Failsafe
I think planes unable to take off is about as failsafe as you can get in that industry.
I'd much prefer that than planes being able to take off but not able to land (in a controlled manner)
Re: Failsafe
Or not having the correct fuel load, centre of gravity information, and whatever else they manage through that system!
Re: Failsafe
One of the required tasks is to transmit the APR information once final passenger details are known (i.e. not until after the doors close). A manual backup of phoning through the personal details of everyone on international flights would be a security nightmare and take hours per flight. Much better to just wait a few hours for the system to be available again.
Given the considerable complexity in putting people in an aluminium (or carbon fibre these days) tube and hurling it through the air at 550kts, then hoping to hit a 20m wide strip of land 5500 miles away then you are very lucky that the skills and procedures of the industry mean your biggest concern is your cramped seat and late arrival.
We have a saying in the industry - its always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.
== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==
Suitably vague... cough... outsourcing
"the problem stemmed from software that BA pilots access via Apple iPads, and said the system was in the process of being upgraded, citing "people familiar with the matter" who asked not to be identified."
Interestingly BA seem to have had significantly more of these problems since they outsourced a lot of their IT operations to the lowest bidder. This isn't about "people over there" or anything derogatory though, oh no. Conversely, it's about people over here making stupid decisions that lead to these problems.
Whenever it happens they put out a suitably vague press release which doesn't fully describe the problem. "people familiar with the matter" is a codeword for saying "we don't really understand what the fuck has happened ourselves". The real, underlying cause is outsourced, cost cut, poor IT development that pleases bean counters but alienates the dwindling number of people who are still stupid/desparate enough to use BA as an airline.
I really, really hope this airline goes under ASAP.