Originally Posted by wrp96 (Post 27033061)

I don't know that this will be considered a case of extraordinary circumstances, unless the actual cause was something outside of DL's control. An IT failure in and of itself isn't unusual.

Originally Posted by MSP_Dave (Post 27032871)

I heard initially that this outage was due to a "power outage". B as in B, S as in S. They have redundant power backup systems at their data centers.



They have. They just simply weren't making it happen a priority. The DR project my team was working on was multi-year, and we were into Year 2 when I was one of the 10% of full time employees who were cut last November, and it still wasn't even in an alpha test phase yet. And they just had another round of layoffs, according to people I still talk with who are some of the lucky/unlucky ones still working there.



I used to work for one of Delta's dozens of IT teams until last November. They ain't paying big bucks to anyone but upper management. Cheap cheap cheap rules the roost now, with cost cutting happening anywhere and everywhere possible. Contractors galore, because they are far cheaper than full-time employees (no medical/dental/life insurance, no 401k matching, no profit-sharing). Their new CIO's reputation coming in? He is a "cost-cutter".

Sadly, I predicted Delta would be making headlines for an IT-related outage last year after being let go, and it didn't take more than 10 months for that to come true. :( The writing was on the wall last year - New management, total focus on the bottom-line, and a lot of people who gave their blood, sweat, and tears for the company being unceremoniously dumped one way or another. And don't let anyone tell you differently - Richard was not running the company for months prior to the "surprise" announcement that he was retiring. Ed was pulling all the strings behind the scenes. He's your typical CEO these days - cut costs, bottom-line focus, to hell with everything else. Delta has been trying like hell to make him "look good", "people-friendly", etc. He's had a bad reputation within the employee ranks for years as being cold and careless, whereas Richard had much goodwill and genuine concern for employees.

Some heads are going to roll for this outage. Unfortunately, it won't be the ones at the top who mandated cost savings.

Originally Posted by MSP_Dave (Post 27032871)

I used to work for one of Delta's dozens of IT teams until last November. They ain't paying big bucks to anyone but upper management. Cheap cheap cheap rules the roost now, with cost cutting happening anywhere and everywhere possible. Contractors galore, because they are far cheaper than full-time employees (no medical/dental/life insurance, no 401k matching, no profit-sharing). Their new CIO's reputation coming in? He is a "cost-cutter".

Sadly, I predicted Delta would be making headlines for an IT-related outage last year after being let go, and it didn't take more than 10 months for that to come true. :( The writing was on the wall last year - New management, total focus on the bottom-line, and a lot of people who gave their blood, sweat, and tears for the company being unceremoniously dumped one way or another. And don't let anyone tell you differently - Richard was not running the company for months prior to the "surprise" announcement that he was retiring. Ed was pulling all the strings behind the scenes. He's your typical CEO these days - cut costs, bottom-line focus, to hell with everything else. Delta has been trying like hell to make him "look good", "people-friendly", etc. He's had a bad reputation within the employee ranks for years as being cold and careless, whereas Richard had much goodwill and genuine concern for employees.

Some heads are going to roll for this outage. Unfortunately, it won't be the ones at the top who mandated cost savings.

Originally Posted by MSPeconomist (Post 27033104)

I wonder whether these issues were related to the departure of Theresa Weiss.

Originally Posted by wrp96 (Post 27033061)

I don't know that this will be considered a case of extraordinary circumstances, unless the actual cause was something outside of DL's control. An IT failure in and of itself isn't unusual.

Originally Posted by MSP_Dave (Post 27033147)

I believe they completely are. Theresa held back the movement of shifting IT jobs from MSP to ATL, and also fought hard and fought well for IT security/project funding. Her departure was rumored to have been "influenced" by the fact that she wouldn't uproot her family and move to ATL, and Richard's retirement soon after she left wasn't a coincidence at all. The old guard, those who brought Delta out of bankruptcy, merged with NWA, and made it into arguably the best US-based airline, is now gone, and in its place are those who hold none of the same values or traits.

Originally Posted by RTW1 (Post 27033098)

That it hasn't happened to DL on this scale for decades makes it quite extraordinary doesn't it..... the definitions in the legislation are very broad as well.

Originally Posted by dzflyer (Post 27033167)

I agree and thus the race to the bottom under the guise of hey we survyed everyone and this is what you wanted. Yeah right.:rolleyes:

Originally Posted by Widgets (Post 27032839)

Delta Connection was operating on-time this morning as far as I could tell, since their flight plans are generated by their own carriers' tech.

Originally Posted by Zorak (Post 27032921)

FWIW you can subscribe to a thread w/o posting to it -- from the full desktop web site, Thread Tools > Subscribe to this Thread

Originally Posted by MSP_Dave (Post 27033232)

Let's put it this way - The people who were the reason DL had not been in the headlines in recent years for IT-related outages, by being meticulous, thoughtful, and methodical, are mostly gone now. This will likely be something DL has to deal with again in the coming months and years, until the bottom-line, bean-counter mentality is driven back. And I don't see that happening anytime soon.