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- Many airlines and the FAA rely on old technology.
- When computer glitches happen, they can throw the entire air travel system into chaos.
- Experts say IT upgrades are needed to make the industry more resilient.
When Tallie Davis’ flight was delayed, the situation presented a difficult choice. She and her college bowling team were scheduled to fly Southwest Airlines around noon Wednesday and return to Louisville from Las Vegas where they were at a tournament. But when their first flight was delayed an hour and a half, leaving them only five minutes to connect in Chicago, they were forced to consider other options.
They thought about driving and hoping to “get a pilot to wait a few minutes” or try to drive the rest of the way from Chicago. But after talking to the airline, the 20-year-old said, the group decided to move its flights back one day at no charge.
What happened:Over 10,000 US Flights Delayed, Canceled: ‘I’m Frustrated But I Smell Like Passion Fruit’
Old technology to blame?:Experts say old technology may be responsible for the FAA outage that caused thousands of delays
Davis, who is also a mental health technician at a psychiatric hospital, had to leave her job and she and her teammates had to pay for an extra night at the hotel. But the extended visit had some advantages. “We’ve actually had a day to go out more often (in Las Vegas), so it’s more of a team-building experience for us than a rush on the way home,” she said.
Davis was one of the luckiest airmen on Wednesday.
A system failure at the Federal Aviation Administration has resulted in more than 10,000 flight delays and more than a thousand cancellations, leading to headaches for travelers and crews across the country. For part of the morning, the FAA halted departures nationwide for the first time since September 11.
While the agency “determined that the data file was corrupted by personnel not following procedures” on Thursday, experts told USA TODAY that old technology is often the cause of problems for the country’s airline network.
Old aviation technology
Between the FAA glitch on Wednesday and the Southwest computer crash earlier this winter, experts say the IT systems behind air travel are strained, especially as demand for flights continues to grow.
“The system is getting old. Maybe at some point they’re easier to hack, they have more points of failure,” said Alex Cruz, former CEO of British Airways and current board member of Fetcherr, an artificial intelligence firm focused on airline pricing and revenue management.
Cruz added that the airline’s IT infrastructure worked especially well during the pandemic when few people were traveling, but now that demand has picked up, systems are overloading under new pressure.
“This is an unintended test of IT that is happening across the industry,” he said. “It wouldn’t be crazy to see other cases in the coming months as passenger numbers continue to grow.”
Experts weigh:Could old technology be responsible for the FAA failure that caused thousands of delays?
Are passengers entitled to compensation in the event of aviation technology failure?
It’s hard to say for sure.
When an airline cancels a flight for any reason, the Department of Transportation requires the company to refund passengers who choose not to travel, even if they have purchased non-refundable tickets.
In the event of a delay, the rules are less clear and the rules vary from one airline to another.
When Southwest had problems earlier this winter, it voluntarily agreed to compensate passengers not only with refunds, but also extra miles for frequent flights and reimbursement of incidentals.
Delayed or canceled flight?:What is worth knowing and what airlines owe travelers.
Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he would do everything in his power to hold Southwest and other airlines accountable.
However, it’s unclear whether the FAA will be similarly on the hook to heal affected passengers, although some industry watchers, including Brett Snyder, who runs the Cranky Flier blog, are calling on the agency to invest money in the proverbial mouth is and pay for its own mistake systemic.
“(K)who should be responsible when the FAA is causing all these cancellations and delays?” he wrote in a Thursday post. “It should be the federal government.”
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However, passengers should not hold their breath. Buttigieg disagreed with Wednesday’s suggestion that the FAA should reimburse travelers for the outage.
But for most travelers, it doesn’t really matter who pays. The frustration of delays or cancellations is enough to leave a bitter aftertaste.
“They beat me”:How massive Southwest flight cancellations forced passengers to improvise
Chris SE and his wife were in Boise for their father’s funeral and were booked to fly to Dulles, Virginia on a United Airlines flight scheduled to depart at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. They ended up sitting on the asphalt for three hours.
The couple missed their flight to Dulles by 15 minutes and spent the next few hours trying to rebook to a flight that evening, but “zero help from United”. They ended up spending about $2,500 of their own money on new tickets.
“I expected United to be on duty,” said SE. “Apparently there was a flight nightmare coming up and they should have been ready when we got off the plane. Every single route we tried to use to work with United failed on their part. Leaving us alone.”
SE said he hoped United would reimburse him for “years of accumulated points” which he used to purchase the original flights he and his wife never flew.
How to fix it?
According to Fetcherr’s Cruz, airlines and the federal government must commit to investing in technological improvements or these kinds of problems could become more prevalent.
“This is the biggest unspoken issue and challenge facing the aviation industry after recovering from (COVID) and continuing to tackle sustainability issues,” he said. “It cannot remain unresolved indefinitely.”
What is the NOTAM system?:The FAA outage that caused flight delays across the United States has been explained
After this winter’s woes, he expects airline boards – and the FAA Congress, when reauthorization is due later this year – to take a closer look at their IT spending to see if they’re really investing as much as they need to keep things in order.
“What’s happened over the years, if you’ve changed the skin around the heart, changed some of the muscles around the heart, that’s good because the heart is still pumping, but the original (technological) heart is still the same,” he said. “It would be in the interest of most airlines working in the airspace to assess whether their heart is in good shape or not.”
