“Is Something Fishy With All the Airline Computer Outages?”

That’s basically how the question has been posed to me following last week’s immense computer meltdown (I’m pretty sure that’s the appropriate technical term.) at Delta Airlines, which affected its flights worldwide. Delta is back on its feet; however, many people wonder if the story is just developing.

I’m talking about those like an acquaintance who asked worriedly if it might be ISIS. For the record, I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist. I also think she’s looking in the wrong corner of the world for possible culprits (seeing how ISIS is less into covert financial sabotage and more into bloody attention stunts). That said, she can’t be blamed for noticing what can appear as a pattern – the country’s major airlines have each been hit with notable computer problems, one after the other, over the course of a year or so.

July 8, 2015 – United

The series opener lasted a few hours, affecting 4,900 flights. The problem was attributed to a “network connectivity issue” caused by a single faulty network server. This outage alone raised some eyebrows since it coincided with outages at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Stock Exchange.

Sept 17, 2015 – American

The blame for this outage was given the same vague “network connectivity problem” explanation as United’s and reportedly traced back to Chicago O’Hare. While flights were grounded at three hubs, I think many people confuse this outage with the even larger one American experienced in April 2013 which grounded planes “from coast to coast.”

January 16, 2016 – JetBlue

This event wasn’t the blow-out that some of these were, but JetBlue certainly took its turn with an “intermittent network issues due to a data center power outage.”

July 20, 2016 – Southwest

This one got an exceptional amount of coverage this summer. It’s said to have been caused by a faulty network router but the story was bigger than that, with details later adding that the IT system failed, as did the backup system and the restoration process. That is extraordinary. Reportedly a 12-hour reboot was required to get things going again.

August 8, 2016 – Delta

Affecting flights worldwide, a fire is said to have started this one, which caused a power cut to the Atlanta data center – a cut that backup systems failed to handle correctly. Delta says, “Around 300 of about 7,000 data center components were discovered to not have been configured appropriately” to make use of backup power.”

Of course, this clean one-by-one order only holds within a certain framing. This website has been tracking major computer faults in the industry and illustrates a less organized picture of victims, but that’s unlikely to deter many suspicions. Our brains still like to see patterns.

While every major computer problem earns a few mumbles about sabotage, Delta’s outage was the first to generate random questions to me as to whether I’m suspicious. When I mentioned that to a Delta insider I was told some were making the same observation (personal commentary only). In turn I asked a friend/expert in computer security, who responded that it had been the talk around her office last week, and maybe a closer look should be taken.

However, many experts confidently present a less nefarious explanation. It’s only marginally more comforting to the traveler’s plans, since the problems are predicted to keep on coming.

It starts with the observation that most industry systems date from the late 1990s. This is easy to believe considering the warnings we’ve had about America’s shockingly antiquated ATC systems for as long as I can remember. Add to that: airline computer systems run 24-hours a day, 365-days per year. There is no such thing as a shutdown for maintenance. This contributes to what George Hobica, president of Airfarewatchdog, describes as a “hodgepodge of equipment that’s been cobbled together over the years.”

Mergers have contributed, with ever more interlinked and combined systems having to be integrated within the 24/365 operating demands. One expert compared it to trying to maintain an aircraft in flight – all being performed in an environment where powerhouse tech talent is hard to attract. Flight benefits struggle to compete as enticement against the salaries and stock options that places like Google (et cetera) can and will offer.

Whether your intuition lends you towards suspicious explanations or not, it’s undeniable that our industry tech is worryingly vulnerable. Does it matter why you think it’s happening? Ask the traveler who’s trying to decide which the wisest airline to book with next.

[Photo: Continuity Insights]