This has been as much of a customer service failure as anything else. We were treated very poorly coming back from Boston and a lot of those issues could have been mitigated if they had a plan in place to handle the customer service side of things. No comunication (we found out the flight got cancelled at 1am by looking at the board at the gate as there was not an agent to be found), no resources (the ticketing counter was staffed, but they wouldnt let us in line becauase they needed to go home) and no plan. I actually feel bad for the employees trying to do the best they can, seemingly working overtime with no plan (not the little snot who turned us away, she can eat a bag), the baggage lady kept saying she had to leave, she had to leave, and then kept helping the next person, next person, etc...

To an earlier point, incentivizing people to not travel would have been really smart, we were with a sports team, half driving half flying. had they said, here's $1000 to not try to get on this flight, we would have hopped in with someone else, or the rest of the flyers would have just carpooled. Instead we went to airport and sat for 7 hours till they cancelled us, sending us scrambling. we operated the entire team under the impression that this flight was going to leave, albeit delayed, because they were not saying anything else. So there's also a failure on their part to forsee the impact of this.

as for the IT side, meh...it happens. Plug one issue, and 5 more will be created. Just the world we live in. Its the response thats so disappointing.