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All Delta flights grounded due to system-wide computer failure

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Thousands of Delta Air Lines passengers around the world are facing delays with all of the company's departing flights having been grounded over a system-wide computer failure. (www.independent.co.uk) さらに...

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canuck44
canuck44 9
Probably should be looking for some IT guys who understand a little about electricity, back up, off site switching and multiple layers of UPS with auto switching and power generation. They probably have better back up systems at their oil refinery.
vandi
I have spent 25 years in IT. it is pretty amazing how much people don't think of DR (disaster recovery) until something bad happens. Even then, there is a whole chain of events that need to happen to recover from it. Even with the all the best laid plans, if one thing fails to recover, then you may have a big problem.

There have been several cases where millions have been spent on planning, setup, and testing, that when the event does come, something was missed with the replication of the data to the DR site that prevents proper recovery.
carlsonj
The other shocking thing is how often companies will implement complicated DR schemes and then either test only once or just not at all, because real testing often does involve an undesirable impact on operations and costs money.

Guess when most companies find out that all of their backup tapes are unreadable? Yep. It's when they have their first real failure, and their archives are filled with piles of useless trash.

It's like anything else: you have to practice regularly. And if it ain't tested, then it doesn't work.
obrun26
The DAS Atlanta Data Center is 'fed' from two separate power grids, each from a unique power plant. This was a computer software failure.....thus Georgia Power's response of 'BS' to power failure!

canuck44
canuck44 2
We had that at a hospital in Canada...Hospital was fed by a ring from Nova Scotia Power plus it had its own emergency generator. Unfortunately the switch designed to keep the power flowing burned (literally) leaving all in the dark. It was a few hours before full functionality was restored and days before a new switch could be installed.
kfrantzen
Specialized in reliability at Bell Labs. In switching I used to send people out to new switching offices to blow 100 amp fuses at random or with a good idea .... We analyzed the results in detail to verify grounding of equipment and duplicate power operation. Switching systems were powered via commercial AC, backed up by diesel generators, backed up by batteries. We had procedures well documented as to what equipment to power down first if we got to batteries and needed to preserve minimum service as long as possible. Issues always cropped up in real life. Once had a diesel fail to kick on because a relay failed - impossible to test in operation without big risk of all the crp that happens during the commercial AC glitch. Power doesn't go away fast enough and fault tolerant equipment is challenged with figuring out what happen during the few 100 ms ringing. During a hurricane we once ran cables from a truck on the street with a diesel generator into the building as the diesel fuel on the roof was taken out my the wind! Power failure tests were always used in the system labs to test fault tolerant code. Power is tricky. You wouldn't believe how messy things get when the "green wire" is not properly grounding some frames.
tvieno
I surmised that there was an excessive amount of reports of light chop was the reason why DAL was grounded.
AWAAlum
AWAAlum 2
Having read all of the posts, I'm left wondering:
Since when is a computer issue a grammar issue? Such silly nitpicking.
yr2012
In a statement issued Monday morning, Delta Air Lines said it "has experienced a computer outage that has impacted flights scheduled this morning." All flights awaiting departure are delayed but flights en route were said to be operating normally.

As we might expect, the company's stock took a few licks, trading down about 2% in Monday's premarket session before recovering after the open. That price is still higher than last week's low of $36.02 posted Thursday after Delta's report earlier in the week that passenger traffic was down 7% year over year in July.

Delta attributed the drop in passenger revenue per available seat mile to "continued close-in domestic yield weakness, the ongoing supply-demand imbalance in the Transatlantic, and headwinds from the company's Yen hedge positions."

Domestic yield weakness is a polite way of saying that Delta's capacity additions have outstripped the number of seats it can fill. Domestic capacity rose 4.2% year over year in July while domestic revenue rose just 1.8%. Mainline revenues rose 2.7%, and the revenue shortfall was due to its regional operations which posted a 3% decline.

Mainline capacity rose by 5.3%, however, and regional capacity declined by 1.7%. One is growing too fast and the other is not shrinking fast enough. Total system capacity rose 2.1%, while revenues rose just 1.2%.

Load factors fell by 2.0 percentage points to 86.6% in July, with mainline loads down 2.2 points and regional loads down 1.1 points. Including international routes, load factors fell 0.9 point year over year.

Competitive pressures have kept the airlines from raising fares. Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) expects revenue per seat mile to fall 3% to 4% in the second half of 2016. Delta expects third-quarter unit revenue to fall by 4% to 6%.
tpmorrow
tpmorrow 1
And if we're really being correct, then it's not "...computer outage that has impacted flight schedules...", but "...that has affected flight schedules...", or "disrupted flight schedules...". Or any other transitive verb. Any other, really. Because "impact" is not a transitive verb. As long as we're being picky I, for one, am pretty fed up with reading that, for example, apropos to this website, "...the airplane impacted the ground." Really? How about "crashed"?
The popularity of this misused word started in the US quite a while ago, and my theory is that it started because Americans no longer knew the difference between "affect" and "effect". Or didn't care, more likely. And now even the English have started using it.
Yazoo
Yazoo 2
From the Random House dictionary:
Usage note Expand
The verb impact has developed the transitive sense “to have an impact or effect on” ( The structured reading program has done more to impact the elementary schools than any other single factor) and the intransitive sense “to have an impact or effect” ( The work done at the computer center will impact on the economy of Illinois and the nation). Although recent, the new uses are entirely standard and most likely to occur in formal speech.
tpmorrow
tpmorrow 1
I know, I know. Sigh.
jeffbeaumont
Oh, so it is not the fault of America then?
jeffbeaumont
"Even the English" that is so funny.
wopri
Sorry, wrong choice of words, should be "grounded" and not "cancelled" in the title.
wopri
Thanks for correcting.
karl
You're welcome.
yr2012
Both are correct.
Muchits
Muchits 1
Delta didn't cancel all flights today - ergo grounding is correct.
stvmlny
First world problems. Wilburrrrrr what have you created?
lodave
lodave 1
Uh, did you just wake up? Delta resumed over flights four hours ago
emmagruder
Maybe Delta should look into Motor-Generator technology to isolate electrical loads from the electrical power supply line. This technology has been around for a very long time now; with it computers don't see any power grid hits, in fact the power grid could go off-line and the computer center would never know it unless someone from maintenance call to report the Gen's are operational.
carlsonj
It's a good general suggestion. Although motor-generator set-ups can be pretty expensive to build, it does work quite well.

Unfortunately, it's not perfect because it doesn't prevent all possible faults. The underlying issue is that recovering from a disaster takes continual practice, and anyone who's worked on highly available systems has seen some really bizarre failure modes.
emmagruder
You are correct, it takes constant practice and a operations protocol for exercising backup MG's. The expense doesn't end with the initial equipment purchase, maintenance personnel would require factory training on both the MG's and the switching equipment. The up side is clean power that you control rather than the power controlling you.
akayemm
Can this be called a man made disaster ?
If so , I'm reminded of saying
To err is human , To blunder is divine .
Spotify
Politics eh, well I guess religion could in future play a role too! Most issues the mere traveller has no control over anyhow - part of life some say but is it quite all that way.
PunkyMalone
DELTA did every shady trick in the book to deal with their problem. I am so angry, I am thinking of bad raping them from here to eternity. They texted me to tell me my flight was not departing on time, then departed on time. I get stranded. . . one way to get rid of passengers.
LarryQB
LarryQB 1
According to USA Today Delta last fall cancelled it's interline agreement with American, thus no help to be had when they needed it.
wopri
Message on Delta's website:

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/advisories.html
gerardogodoy
This proves, once again, the decay of the IT infrastructure in the Airline Industry of the US. Its coming apart from years of neglect, regulations and a dying technology. More to come on other airlines in the near future. General infrastructure in the US is crumbling and will continue to do so with such incompetent government.
loydenochs
Government has nothing to do with it. Delta's management made a concious decision to not update their computer systems, simple as that.
Spotify
Politics in airlines too
wopri
Can you explain your comment?
scott8733
I think what Brian's saying is that Delta claims a power outage caused this. Later, Georgia Power came out and basically called 'BS' on this accusation, saying there was no power outage and this came from a Delta equipment failure. Just how it works in our federal capital. No one accepts responsibility for anything; rather there's nothing but finger pointing when the wheels fall off the wagon.
vandi
I worked for an airline IT back in 2001, and we suffered a power outage in our datacenter due to equipment failure. One phase of 3 phase circuit dropped out and about half of the computer systems went down. The generator never kicked in as it didn't see it as a full outage and if it did kick in, would have probably done more damage to the unbalanced load it would have placed on the system. It does take some time to recover from. Luckily for us it was only internal systems. Power company did have to come out and reset something.
yr2012
GP is correct - not their problem
Muchits
Muchits 1
Were you in the OCC when the lights went out?
matt12gauge
(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

Delta Grounds Flights Worldwide Following Computer Outage

Delta scrambles to deal with system outage that occurred early Monday morning.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/delta-grounds-planes-nationwide-after-computer-system-crashes
margeauxk
(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

Delta Grounds Flights Worldwide

Delta Air Lines passengers around the world are beginning the week stuck in airports thanks to what the airline says is a global systems failure.

http://www.newser.com/story/229310/delta-grounds-flights-worldwide.html

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