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The fragile cobweb of BA's computer network is nothing to be concerned about.

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Evan View Post
    But you are certainly right 3WE, the expense of this debarcle will outstrip the cost of having prevented it. The problem is, this is not the result of practical and visionary cost/benefit thinking. This is push-it-down-the-road-cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it-careening-headlong-into-quarterly-performance-stock-valuation-because-the-largesse-of-my-compensation-is-determined-by-share-price-valuation thinking. All of which could be avoided by sensible regulatory standards for the network fault tolerance of airline operations that societies entirely depend on to function.
    With the possible exception of healthcare (which is in its own endless clusterbleep), I don't know of an industry more regulated than commercial aviation. Nevertheless, these sorts of things continue to happen. Is it at all possible that more regulation is not the answer?

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
      With the possible exception of healthcare (which is in its own endless clusterbleep), I don't know of an industry more regulated than commercial aviation. Nevertheless, these sorts of things continue to happen. Is it at all possible that more regulation is not the answer?
      Well, the best answer is ethics, but that ship has sailed.

      The next best answer is market forces, competition, the threat of lost revenue from downtime driving preventative investment. But, thanks to corrupted regulatory bodies, we now have virtual monopolies. So you can forget about that as well.

      The only option I see left is to impose the rule of law. Impose a set standard of provable resiliency and contingency for failure to the computer networks that have become so essential to safe, functional air travel. Pay to play, basically. And yes, they would pay, because they have the money and they want to play.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Schwartz View Post
        Not a chance. You have absolutely no idea about how impractical what you are suggesting is.
        You've got to be kidding me. What could be more impractical than running your airline operations on a wing-and-a-prayer network and incurring 3+ days of chaos at any given moment? You want to talk about practicality?

        I am guessing, but I think there is a good chance making a system like this far more fault tolerant would require a complete overhaul of all of their systems.
        Yes

        That is extremely expensive.
        Yes, but an inevitable expense that will only become more expensive the longer you push it down the road.

        I am sure that if we look at this single failure, there is a cheaper solution for it.
        Cheaper in the short term or cheaper overall? Certainly you can keep sticking cheap patches on the thing, like an aging bicycle innertube. But what about the cost of ongoing disruptions and damage to your brand? Isn't it better to spend more on a new, more robust, less-puncture-prone innertube? Isn't it cheaper to spend your time generating revenue rather than patching and apologizing?

        However, I'll also bet there are 100 other similar vulnerabilities lying there which is something only a complete overhaul and re-architecture could address. I'll even go further to suggest, they should not make the system resilient to single points of failure. Instead, they should accept the failure and allow the system to recover quickly when it does fail.
        Agreed! The issue isn't about making something fail-proof, it is about making it fail-passive (or fail-operational). That's all I'm getting at. If the booking system goes down for 30 mins, that's manageable. But to do this, you have to plan it out architecturally and have control and supervision of every mission-critical aspect. You have to have contingencies in place and a means to avoid failure cascades. Instead of a house of cards you need to have a house where any card is able to fall without causing the entire thing to come crashing down.

        But you can't have that when you cobble together networks from a jumble of third-party legacy components and outsourced IT. Until you get rid of that and build something modern and manageable, all you can do is patch and pray...

        If Commercial Aviation is not resilient to schedule pressure, then that safety problem was caused by the system, not the source of the stress.
        Unless you've had your head in the sand all these years, you are aware of the many accidents caused by schedule pressures, manifested in get-there-itis and fatigue-inducing duty rosters. The industry is indeed resilient to these pressures but with notable exceptions which are quite notable for their mass fatalities and impact craters. Yes, the source of the stress IS the system because the system creates and tolerates such pressures, either deliberately through profit seeking or unintentionally through neglect.

        There is only one word to categorize what has happen to BA these past days: neglect.

        If your airline is leaving you stranded, go use a different one.
        Again, I want to live in this world of yours. I'm sure all the stranded passengers from the past three days would as well.

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Evan View Post
          Well, the best answer is ethics, but that ship has sailed.

          The next best answer is market forces, competition, the threat of lost revenue from downtime driving preventative investment. But, thanks to corrupted regulatory bodies, we now have virtual monopolies. So you can forget about that as well.

          The only option I see left is to impose the rule of law. Impose a set standard of provable resiliency and contingency for failure to the computer networks that have become so essential to safe, functional air travel. Pay to play, basically. And yes, they would pay, because they have the money and they want to play.
          That's not what I asked.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
            ...Your trust in a benevolent (and presumably competent) government remains endearing as ever....Is it at all possible that more regulation is not the answer?...
            In a fantasy world, Evan is correct.

            In the real world, I have to renew my License plates periodically.
            Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
              That's not what I asked.
              You asked:

              Is it at all possible that more regulation is not the answer?
              I answered: more regulation is the only answer we have left.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
                With the possible exception of healthcare (which is in its own endless clusterbleep), I don't know of an industry more regulated than commercial aviation. Nevertheless, these sorts of things continue to happen. Is it at all possible that more regulation is not the answer?
                Off the top of my head, I'd say financial services and the civil nuclear industry may be subject to more regulatory oversight.

                But it's a good and productive question. Do you know the concept of 'regulatory capture' ?

                Comment


                • #23
                  so the number of pax who would be receiving the euro damages award ranging from 200-600 uk pounds is what? 75,000? one would think that it would be the shareholders looking to take of some nutsacks after that payout is made

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by TeeVee View Post
                    so the number of pax who would be receiving the euro damages award ranging from 200-600 uk pounds is what? 75,000? one would think that it would be the shareholders looking to take of some nutsacks after that payout is made
                    But instead, they would look whom to blame to eject them with a golden parachute.

                    --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                    --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Evan View Post
                      You've got to be kidding me. What could be more impractical than running your airline operations on a wing-and-a-prayer network and incurring 3+ days of chaos at any given moment?
                      Regulating computers systems is far more impractical.

                      Yes, but an inevitable expense that will only become more expensive the longer you push it down the road.
                      Not true, once the whole system needs to be replaced the cost will be pretty fixed.

                      Cheaper in the short term or cheaper overall? Certainly you can keep sticking cheap patches on the thing, like an aging bicycle innertube. But what about the cost of ongoing disruptions and damage to your brand? Isn't it better to spend more on a new, more robust, less-puncture-prone innertube? Isn't it cheaper to spend your time generating revenue rather than patching and apologizing?
                      You may be right. You may be wrong. Someone will need to run the actual numbers. There is significant risk associated with any new system and in converting from old to new ones.

                      Agreed! The issue isn't about making something fail-proof, it is about making it fail-passive (or fail-operational). That's all I'm getting at. If the booking system goes down for 30 mins, that's manageable. But to do this, you have to plan it out architecturally and have control and supervision of every mission-critical aspect. You have to have contingencies in place and a means to avoid failure cascades. Instead of a house of cards you need to have a house where any card is able to fall without causing the entire thing to come crashing down.

                      But you can't have that when you cobble together networks from a jumble of third-party legacy components and outsourced IT. Until you get rid of that and build something modern and manageable, all you can do is patch and pray...
                      We agree on most of this, but the last statement is not correct. You can mix many legacy systems together successfully (banks do it all the time) but you have to do it properly. One of the things that needs to be considered in a fail tolerant system is you need enough system capacity at every level to be able to process the backlog in a reasonable time when the system comes back up. Many banks have made this mistake, where a single relatively short fault results in days of backlog until the weekend where the systems can catch up.

                      Unless you've had your head in the sand all these years, you are aware of the many accidents caused by schedule pressures, manifested in get-there-itis and fatigue-inducing duty rosters. The industry is indeed resilient to these pressures but with notable exceptions which are quite notable for their mass fatalities and impact craters. Yes, the source of the stress IS the system because the system creates and tolerates such pressures, either deliberately through profit seeking or unintentionally through neglect.
                      You note your own logic flaw here. The schedule problem doesn't cause a crash. Get-there-itis and fatigue inducing duty rosters are the cause, and solving computer systems problems doesn't eliminate that risk at all, it just reduces some fraction of their occurrence. Probably a very small fraction. Again, the causes aren't the stressors, the system responding to them are.

                      There is only one word to categorize what has happen to BA these past days: neglect.
                      Agree here too.

                      Again, I want to live in this world of yours. I'm sure all the stranded passengers from the past three days would as well.
                      People are cheap. People will take risks to save money all the time. If my cheap car keeps breaking and leaving me stranded, I can choose to buy a new one, or live with the uncertainty of the old one.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Schwartz View Post
                        The schedule problem doesn't cause a crash. Get-there-itis and fatigue inducing duty rosters are the cause...
                        Schwartz, you seem to have a good handle on how systems work, except for this one. Get-there-itis and fatigue-inducing duty rosters are the EFFECT, not the cause. The cause is pressure, either stated or implied, by those seeking to squeeze more profit out of pilots through minimizing contingencies and maximizing labor. The system you refer to—the cause—is everything that creates that pressure. You spoke of the backlog problem in network systems. Well, there is also a backlog problem in terms of people and airplanes when an entire megalopoly airline is grounded for 3+ days. The need to ellminate that backlog will now be the root cause of such pressure. The most valuable commodities a pilot can have are sound judgment and the ability to concentrate, and chaotic distractions and company pressures (stated or implied) erode these things. That's when accidents happen.

                        People are cheap. People will take risks to save money all the time.
                        Very, very true. And this is why we must have laws and regulations. For example, we now have regulations limiting contiguous duty time. If a flight is significantly delayed and the crew cannot complete the flight within the time regulation, the flight has to either make an unscheduled stopover or await a fresh crew before departing. Would airlines be adhering to this if not for regulations? Not on your life!

                        And so we have one catastrophic network failure after another (how many in the past year?) disrupting tens of thousands of lives and opening the door for potential disaster and it only seems to be getting worse. And then we have sheeple picking themselves off the floor and carrying on with the blind assumption that nothing can be done about it. Well, something CAN be done about it but it will require the force of law to get it done. We suffer though so much corporate abuse in the 21st century simply because we lack social responsibility, initiative and political will.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Evan View Post
                          You asked:



                          I answered: more regulation is the only answer we have left.
                          I hope not. Applying more regulation in this case would be akin to trying to bond two slabs of concrete with a gallon of Elmer's glue, not succeeding, then trying the same thing with two gallons of Elmers. The result will be the same because Elmer's doesn't work on concrete, regardless of quantity.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by HalcyonDays View Post
                            Do you know the concept of 'regulatory capture' ?
                            Affirmative.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Evan View Post
                              ...you seem to have a good handle on how systems work, except for this one. Get-there-itis and fatigue-inducing duty rosters are the EFFECT, not the cause. The cause is pressure, either stated or implied...
                              Logical, yes.

                              But with many flaws.

                              Schwartz himself listed situations that cause a lot more stress than mass grounding- and which exist every day. (including the much beloved get-there-it is.) EVERY DAY...an approaching squall line, a maintenance delay, an arrival slot generate tons of situations where there is pressure.

                              Pilots are instructed to fly the same- regardless of pressure...and (despite your conviction otherwise) they do a damn good job of not being pressured.

                              Cutting corners on maintenance happens at slow times too.

                              Operating an aircraft causes risks...By your logic, we should simply ban all flights as the day to day act of operating the aircraft places plenty of stress on systems, pilots, and maintenance.

                              You are fixated on pointy sharp needle falling towards you while discounting the 10 tons of 8" rip rap falling alongside.
                              Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                                Schwartz himself listed situations that cause a lot more stress than mass grounding- and which exist every day. (including the much beloved get-there-it is.) EVERY DAY...an approaching squall line, a maintenance delay, an arrival slot generate tons of situations where there is pressure.
                                Exactly. I remember flying every week to NYC prior to 9/11 and every single flight was delayed because they overbooked the airspace EVERY TIME. They grounded us until the airspace was open. Way more delays happen from non-system crashes all the time. The commercial airline system must be tolerant to any get-there-itis otherwise as 3WE said, we better shut it all down right now.

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