Virgin Blue - Website - Scheduled Maintenance

[oneday_soon]

Virgin Blue's Website is up, but some of its key functionality is offline for scheduled maintenance.

It's Booking and On line Check-in have been offilne since about 6pm last night. You haven't been able to book or check in online for over 12 hours.

How much money are they losing in having such a massive IT outage.

[GAFA]

It's an upgrade of the system, all functions will be back latter today.

[cavemanzk]

Could be something to do with the re-branding and trasntasman merger.

[Red Jet]

I am not one to easily leap to the defense of our IT depeartment, but this outage was planned long time ago for scheduled upgrade of the booking engine. It doesn't have anything to do with the launch of the new brand either.

[GAFA]

It does have to do with with the rebranding, as the upgrade will only better recognition of all guests, especially corporate clients.

[oneday_soon]

Not so much a criticisim as an observation. I belong to an organistion of over 50,000 people and no way would senior management agree to an outage of over 12 hours on that scale, unless something had burnt down and it was out of ITs hands. Planned outages of significant impact are generally done in stages with our organisation.

Saying that i do not know Virgins IT systems, and possibly they had no choice but one big outage.

[Mr. Hat]

Don't think they had an option oneday.

[Squeaks]

Originally Posted by Red Jet

I am not one to easily leap to the defense of our IT depeartment, but this outage was planned long time ago for scheduled upgrade of the booking engine. It doesn't have anything to do with the launch of the new brand either.

Whatever it is to do with, it has been a royal PITA! Not having checked here I've spent 2-3 hours waiting for a chance to book, phoned, got cut off, etc etc. Booking made via phone, but the booking guy knows nothing about web problems: it is working fine, he assured me

[oneday_soon]

I understand Mr.Hat, I can appreciate there are sometimes no other options. Just think airlines operate in such a competitive environment, you never want to give a customer an excuse to flick over to another airline website.

[Cactusjack]

Perhaps DJ's I.T system is linked with the NAB's ??

[Mr. Hat]

Couldn't put it better myself. That is the problem with trying to get something on the cheap. Get the best tools from the start with all the warranties and have them for life. Buy once buy right.

[DainB]

Planned booking backend upgrade apparently with new hardware infrastructure and changes in booking engine. Executed by external provider and has nothing to do with DJ IT systems.

Unfortunately after changes applied there're more than hundred functional tests to be run before system put to load, hence long outages.

And DJ didn't seem to make news this time