Airlines’ computer systems aren’t perfect
On Monday, a brief outage of a computer system caused flight delays across major airlines. Pilots awaiting the weight and balance information to complete their takeoff and landing performance could not take off because data from a program called AeroData was not arriving on schedule.
Departure delays began due to the lack of this critical information.
And last week, passengers on several major airlines couldn’t check in due to a brief computer outage at airline reservations giant Sabre.
What happened? And why are airlines so computer and vendor dependent?
In today’s modern complex world of aviation, computer systems are essential. The flow of data including passenger reservations, freight loading, flight planning, catering orders, fuel loading, takeoff and landing performance all require computer systems to function.
In earlier times, much of this information was moved by paper and sometime even by fax machines. Specially trained people maintained the data for reservations and loading. The weight and balance were calculated by hand, then sent to pilots (I remember those days in the 1980s very well). But as the airlines grew, so did the demand for more efficient and faster systems. Computers were born for such tasks.
Managing databases and performance calculations are tasks computers generally perform well. Today, all passenger records and nearly everything about airline operations use computers. Airlines are more efficient, faster and require fewer people to accomplish the multiple tasks necessary to get a flight airborne.
With these benefits comes dependency.
An airline with inoperative computer systems is grounded – or, in the case of the recent outages, multiple airlines. Consequently, backups and contingency plans are an essential part of every airline’s operation.
Every now and then, in spite of all the planning and preparation, an outage occurs. The consequences are delays until the critical information is in the proper places.
The good news is that this does not happen often.
Last year, worldwide, airlines flew 45 million flights, safely delivering 4.5 billion passengers to their destinations. That level of success indicates that the computer-dependent systems in use are performing pretty well.
Continuous improvement is a goal, and while we have a highly reliable system, occasionally a “glitch” or interrupted data flow occurs.
It is frustrating when a flight is delayed because of these interruptions; fortunately, they occur infrequently, and we can expect them to continue to improve in the future.
John Cox is a retired airline captain with US Airways and runs his own aviation-safety consulting company, Safety Operating Systems.