Air Canada experiencing nationwide network outage 12Mar18
Mar 12, 2018, 10:11 pm
#91
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
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What I have always been impressed about with this industry is how open they are with safety. Any major air disaster there is an independent report form the regulator with a clear definition of what lead up to the disaster, clear recommendations and an industry perspective when it comes to corrective and preventative actions. From a safety perspective I am fairly confident in both AC and WestJet.
That has everything to do with the regulator, little to do with airlines. But also, there are still enough accident happening worldwide to remind anyone in the business that safety entails everyone doing thingds right.
On the IT front that is a different story. That said, its is not as bad as the major banks. About two weeks ago I wrote a US dollar cheque from a business RBC account in Canada to another business RBC account. Both under my control. The reason it is a paper cheque is you cant electronically transfer between US dollar accounts, you cant use the ATM, you can do online banking etc. Walk into the branch and the teller say I need to create and encode a deposit slip because the software will not let me do anything without a deposit slip with special encoding on the bottom. After 5 attempts and 30 minutes they finally have a deposit slip that the reader does not reject. Because it is US funds there is a 15 day hold, even though the teller can see both accounts.
AC is doing as well as many other major corporations in Canada.
Mar 12, 2018, 10:12 pm
#92
Join Date: May 2015
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Actually, I've found the issues to be in organizations where they THINK their main product is not tech.
Today should make it clear how much of their main product is tech.
Think of your main product. If it's not tech, then ask yourself, can you deliver it without tech? If not, then tech is a huge part of your main product (not "necessary for your product", but "part of your product"), and needs to be treated as such.
I've been in stores where power went out. Some of them were quite capable of processing sales with power off. These stores do not have tech as their main product. It's a tool that makes them more efficient, but it's not part of their main product. Then there are stores where sales simply cannot be processed without power. The ones who treat tech as a tool simply close their doors during blackouts. The ones that treat it as part of their product have backup systems so they can continue their operations in the dark.
This is, in my opinion, the difference between a tech company and a "legacy" company. Like Uber versus taxis. Uber has made tech part of the "taxi product" (i.e. one-off car-based transportation), and look at them now.
It's all about how they treat the tech. As a core part of the product, or as an after-thought that they only deal with because it's necessary.
Today should make it clear how much of their main product is tech.
Think of your main product. If it's not tech, then ask yourself, can you deliver it without tech? If not, then tech is a huge part of your main product (not "necessary for your product", but "part of your product"), and needs to be treated as such.
I've been in stores where power went out. Some of them were quite capable of processing sales with power off. These stores do not have tech as their main product. It's a tool that makes them more efficient, but it's not part of their main product. Then there are stores where sales simply cannot be processed without power. The ones who treat tech as a tool simply close their doors during blackouts. The ones that treat it as part of their product have backup systems so they can continue their operations in the dark.
This is, in my opinion, the difference between a tech company and a "legacy" company. Like Uber versus taxis. Uber has made tech part of the "taxi product" (i.e. one-off car-based transportation), and look at them now.
It's all about how they treat the tech. As a core part of the product, or as an after-thought that they only deal with because it's necessary.
Mar 12, 2018, 10:18 pm
#93
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...
Reliability is one thing. Capabilities when dealing with very marginal situations is another. Banks are doing much much better than AC when it comes to run their operations reliably. I don't recall the last time I could not log onto my bank because of some technical issue. They are very serious about redundancy. Even a major fire at one facility won't let them down.
...
Reliability is one thing. Capabilities when dealing with very marginal situations is another. Banks are doing much much better than AC when it comes to run their operations reliably. I don't recall the last time I could not log onto my bank because of some technical issue. They are very serious about redundancy. Even a major fire at one facility won't let them down.
...
AC is still doing better. But not by much.
Mar 12, 2018, 10:27 pm
#94
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This change form earlier is interesting. It was only snow, yet now YYZ is showing this. Wonder if it's the same problem that isn't resolved, or a different one
Mar 12, 2018, 10:28 pm
#95
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You're not selling transportation from A to B. You're selling a purchasing experience. A booking management experience. A check-in experience. A boarding experience. An onboard experience. Transportation from A to B. And maybe a baggage experience.
When RESIII goes down, you lose everything except the core of the transportation (I'm not sure what happened here, if it was just the inability to move a flight to the PD state, or if there were load calculations that couldn't be done, but planes were not taking off). The planes may not start dropping out of the sky, but if I can't check in, you've broken your product. If AC.com is down so I book on DL.com, you've broken your product.
Could you book tickets through OTAs or TAs, or was it impossible to issue 014 stock?
There are just so many aspects of a normal AC experience that are pure technology. They need to treat the tech the same way they treat the planes. My flight last night had a hole in a tire. It was still holding air, but we delayed 45 minutes to replace it. Why do they accept having a website where seat selection can't be done if I've booked through another channel, without going to a special page, and even then, it's not guaranteed to work?
AC (and many airlines) seem to focus most on the things that are heavily regulated, or could result in loss of life, but in terms of the overall business, I'm not convinced that aircraft maintenance is "important" and the website is "not important".
Mar 12, 2018, 10:47 pm
#96
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Uber was one example, but it's basically the premise of most silicon valley companies. Acknowledge that the tech is a core part of a product, and beat all the companies that don't seem to understand that.
You're not selling transportation from A to B. You're selling a purchasing experience. A booking management experience. A check-in experience. A boarding experience. An onboard experience. Transportation from A to B. And maybe a baggage experience.
...
AC (and many airlines) seem to focus most on the things that are heavily regulated, or could result in loss of life, but in terms of the overall business, I'm not convinced that aircraft maintenance is "important" and the website is "not important".
You're not selling transportation from A to B. You're selling a purchasing experience. A booking management experience. A check-in experience. A boarding experience. An onboard experience. Transportation from A to B. And maybe a baggage experience.
...
AC (and many airlines) seem to focus most on the things that are heavily regulated, or could result in loss of life, but in terms of the overall business, I'm not convinced that aircraft maintenance is "important" and the website is "not important".
What would be cool, is a silicon valley try tech company that comes along and tries to be an airline. Like most tech companies they probably would contract out virtually everything else operational. ACMI leased aircraft, outsourced lounges, outsourced baggage handling etc. The company would be fully focused on that customer facing experience and optimize the tech to deliver that experience. It is only real assets would be the brand and the software. Not certain with all the moving parts someone could pull that off.
Mar 13, 2018, 12:24 am
#97
Join Date: Jan 2017
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Agreed they don't put sufficient effort into mapping the customer journey and understanding how the tech defines the customer experience. That said, as a passenger last thing I want is for them to take their eyes off safety, but lets hope they have more than one set of eye balls that can drive things.
What would be cool, is a silicon valley try tech company that comes along and tries to be an airline. Like most tech companies they probably would contract out virtually everything else operational. ACMI leased aircraft, outsourced lounges, outsourced baggage handling etc. The company would be fully focused on that customer facing experience and optimize the tech to deliver that experience. It is only real assets would be the brand and the software. Not certain with all the moving parts someone could pull that off.
What would be cool, is a silicon valley try tech company that comes along and tries to be an airline. Like most tech companies they probably would contract out virtually everything else operational. ACMI leased aircraft, outsourced lounges, outsourced baggage handling etc. The company would be fully focused on that customer facing experience and optimize the tech to deliver that experience. It is only real assets would be the brand and the software. Not certain with all the moving parts someone could pull that off.
TL;dr, with $5mil walking around cash you can start up an airline. Wet leased A/C, outsourced booking, swispoort on the ground... You need a head office of a couple of lawyers, accounts and marketing goons.
And the $5mil.
Mar 13, 2018, 12:36 am
#98
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 6,222
You're not suggesting lives were at risk are you?
I've been deeply involved in a few spectacular outages in the past ... the types that made the front page of the G&M. These companies were also transparent and provided detailed explanations. Except that the explanations were almost pure fiction. So you don't know if a company is being transparent and that you're getting the full story unless you have inside knowledge of what actually happened.
In my experience it was difficult to link these types of catastrophes to deficient levels of spending. Give an inept team a higher budget and the result will not be a more robust system; the result will simply be that more money is spent.
I've been deeply involved in a few spectacular outages in the past ... the types that made the front page of the G&M. These companies were also transparent and provided detailed explanations. Except that the explanations were almost pure fiction. So you don't know if a company is being transparent and that you're getting the full story unless you have inside knowledge of what actually happened.
In my experience it was difficult to link these types of catastrophes to deficient levels of spending. Give an inept team a higher budget and the result will not be a more robust system; the result will simply be that more money is spent.
And I don't know why everyone keeps referring to this as an outage. I'm pretty sure it was just a scheduled maintenance period.
Mar 13, 2018, 2:07 am
#99
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 20
i am going to hazard a guess that there was a data centre outage. Probably unplanned power loss or interruption. It is tough to come up with other scenarios that take all apps offline. As appeared to be the case. Of course if there truly is just one app on which all others depend then I could easily be wrong. And they should definitely have a look at their availability plan in that case.
Mar 13, 2018, 4:54 am
#102
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Mississauga Ontario
Posts: 4,103
Arrogance is denial.
Mar 13, 2018, 4:55 am
#103
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Mississauga Ontario
Posts: 4,103
https://www.networkworld.com/article...by-humans.html
Mar 13, 2018, 5:56 am
#105
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