I think AC is extremely shackled to a legacy world of old-fashioned business processes, requirements for interoperability, and very stringent training requirements for their employees. I believe these issues, and the culture that exists within AC, is causing many of the problems.

As one who went through a major SAP implementation in a western Canadian utility, I know first hand that if management does not have the flexibility to look at, and overhaul how business is being done insofar as business practices while such systems are implemented, system implementation efforts become massively expensive and overruns rampant.

For example, AC continues to use the paper analogue of a 'ticket' when it comes to a reservation. AC's implementation of an electronic reservation is an 'e-ticket' where they simply seek to implement the hard copy form of the 'ticket' into their computer, as well as some additional annotation.

This sort of approach to the business process artifact of a 'ticket' works great for the old-timers because they have issued and accepted a gazillion tickets in their lifetimes, but most younger employees and new managers have a terrible time wrapping their heads around the concept of a 'ticket', and how a 'ticket' differs from a 'coupon' and a 'reservation'. I bet that many new AC hires have never seen a paper ticket before, so there is a significant learning curve involved with what should be a fairly straightforward concept of a 'reservation'. Try spending time in a company that is stuck in the past -- its really discouraging for younger workers.

(for example, I got stuck in YQT one afternoon because of a CRJ going mechanical on a 6-segment cross-Canada mileage run back in 2002. it took the most experienced agent on staff a good 5 minutes to rebuild my reservation, re-endorse the 'coupons', change my reservation from 'L' inventory to Y and J inventory, and actually check me in for the turnaround flight back to YYZ. All on a completely e-ticketed reservation.)

Contrast this with the much better approach of a 'reservation' like Westjet uses. There is only one file, and it is a computer-based reservation. That piece of paper you print out when booking on the website is of completely no value. No Westjet staffer ever has to muck around with booking codes or coupons or paper tickets or e-tickets -- the only thing that exists in the Westjet IT world is a 'reservation'. A very easy concept really, and an example of an airline that didn't drag a paper 'past' into the computer age.

I could give many more examples, but I firmly believe that in an organization such as AC's, unless IT is seen as a completely strategic role, with the power to force the rest of the business to look at things such as business processes, union contracts, accounting methods, etc. -- the business will experience significantly subdued performance from their IT investments and disasters will abound as IT is forced to adapt modern technology to paper-based artifacts ('tickets', 'coupons', 'timesheets') without any consideration of whether retaining the paper-based artifact and processing methodology is appropriate or not.

Since its obvious that AC has not allowed much, if any latitude to their IT team towards the overall transformation of the business, they probably will fall into the same trap. Its just a cultural thing I guess, very hard for old-timer business people to take direction or even guidance from IT professionals, especially when there is some element of risk involved. Contrast AC with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is an IT company that happens to run a chain of department stores and a massive logistics operation. Any coincidence why they happen to be successful where AC and other 'legacy' organizations are not?