Originally Posted by
CW247
Airlines have probably the most complex and difficult to manage IT systems after banks. The shear amount of integration, and backwards interoperability they have to manage should give anyone with a serious understanding of IT systems sleepless nights. Upgrades and constantly changing (read innovating) things to keep up with the latest security patches and supported technologies is an extremely important yet risky task. You are damned if you do and damned if you dont. Failures like this make IT environments better understood and more robust for the future. Give them a break.
No, not much of a break.
(1) They should long ago have better understood their IT environments and made them more robust. Airlines need to understand that their IT systems nowdays are mission-critical and should be managed and funded accordingly.
(2) I well understand the description of the problem on the BA Forum at Flyertalk – but they should have sorted out their legacy systems long, long ago. Then doing an upgrade, with a significant risk of failure, at peak holiday time? Sorry, no break for that.
(3) From what's being described by passengers, BA seems to have no adequate plan at all for what to do when their system goes pear-shaped. Compliments to staff for doing their best, but there simply weren't enough of them out front to deal with the problem. Too many passengers are reporting being stuck for hours on planes, or unable to get information, or in long queues. It should have been "all hands on deck". Where was WIllie Walsh today? Not out front at Terminal 5, I'll bet. Sorry, no break for that either..