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Yet more IT problems at BA

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Yet more IT problems at BA

Old 10th Aug 2019, 21:00
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Originally Posted by yoganmahew
And this is the problem.
IT does fly planes (try flying one without a flight plan), serve passengers (booking and check-in, APIS, seat assignment), load baggage (load sheets - guess which bit of BA broke in the latest failure).
Check-in staff that can efficiently load a plane, ground staff that can safely load it, are an asset without intangibles like goodwill. Customer satisfaction with the travelling experience is related almost entirely to the staff they encounter.
I put it to you that an airline's staff are more important than planes, in this day of aircraft leasing, same with buildings, same with any piece of physical infrastructure; the only differentiator between one airline and another is the people who operate that airline.
If you do not understand the language of business, please refrain from commenting on it. Referring to IT as an overhead was a comment made in that context and is precisely correct, even if it does not fit with your (incorrect in that context) worldview.
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Old 10th Aug 2019, 22:31
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To Fly, Two Servers.... and boy are we in trouble if one or both of them crash.....
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Old 11th Aug 2019, 08:41
  #43 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Chris2303
I would hazard a guess that a contract with Amadeus or Sabre would probably cost a lot less than the disruption caused by in house failures so far this calendar year
Doesn't Amadeus supply the Ryanair system that never works for me.
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Old 11th Aug 2019, 09:37
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Originally Posted by Out Of Trim
I believe BA do use a version of Amadeus Altea ! I'm not sure if it is connected to any in house systems though.
BA uses Fly but it is connected to Altea because some parts of BA or some airports use Altea. When Fly goes down the data just do not go where they are supposed to. Eg. Ramp agents puts all data into his Fly but is unable to finalise the flight. And he is calling you and you are doing that manualy. And you make a loadsheet but you are unable to deliver it. So you end up calling captain and sending it to his email. And he is giving you his email and it all takes to much time. This is what happens these days.

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Old 11th Aug 2019, 15:19
  #45 (permalink)  
 
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It may seem very difficult now but I did everything you say, manually.
Set up loadsheet in advance of a/c arrival.
1. A/C registration gives weights including pantry equipment/catering for that route. May not have been extremely accurate but today isn't either (see below).
2. Forecast of freight and pax numbers allows you, as traffic officer/despatcher, to create load plan. Usually dead standard (all the bags in the back lads), freight in the front or similar based on aicraft type. Use Mark 1 human brain, exerience and training. Occasionally with very small loads, add ballast.
3. Bound up the stairs when she arrives and stick your head on the flight deck and say "How much fuel for the loadsheet skip?" Add numbers to loadsheet.
4. Check-in closes. Add pax numbers and bags to loadsheet.
5. Check bags and cargo in the right place.
6. Drop trim line and put a cross where the TOW and LW are.
7. Add LMCs (last minute changes) for the runner that arrived at check-in 10 minutes before departure.
8. Sign and present clipboard to captain.
9. Tear off a copy and exit stage left.
10. Put on headset (or just earplugs) and do startup and pushback.

Now your electronic jobby might look highly accurate but with the lack of skill and different languages at LGW, it has been known for the a/c to depart with the inbound cargo still on board and not on the loadsheet.
And all my manual jobs took to the air and landed safely, so not much must have been wrong.
Electronics (like calculators) give an illusion of accuracy and expertise where none may exists.
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 08:06
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I can remember when reservations, messaging and cargo applications ran on mainframes with contractually guaranteed, no critical failure in the first three years of operation and not to exceed three critical failures in the total life of the product. Purging all crappy components during production and with multi-host file sharing, redundant power supplies, failover systems, transaction recovery on the fly to ensure availability. when everything went really pear-shaped, only then would you resort to backups.

Then along came MS and Windows, the blue screen of death, no failure analysis, crappy build quality, and with games included, how many would you like at the knock-down price of peanuts?

I am sure aircraft and engine build quality went the same way!, I'm just glad to be out of the rotten business.

IG
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 08:27
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If you do not understand the language of business, please refrain from commenting on it. Referring to IT as an overhead was a comment made in that context and is precisely correct, even if it does not fit with your (incorrect in that context) worldview.
Or perhaps it's the MBA worldview that not only do they know better than people who actually do the job, but they can arrogantly tell them to refrain from commenting on it, that is the root cause of all these issues in many industries, not just aviation.
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 08:42
  #48 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by BizJetJock
Or perhaps it's the MBA worldview that not only do they know better than people who actually do the job, but they can arrogantly tell them to refrain from commenting on it, that is the root cause of all these issues in many industries, not just aviation.
I don't have an MBA, having resisted pressure to do one (ironically, while I was working at BA), but you don't need one to recognise that IT, for an airline, is both an overhead (in accounting terms) and critical infrastructure (in operational terms).

I'm mystified that there's any argument about this.
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 10:56
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Are the Royal Mail trucks that deliver mail overheads? I think not. So why would the IT that runs the sorting depots and responds to tracking requests and capture the gun scans when mail is delivered etc be considered overheads? IT now is value added business essential, not once a month payroll or profit/loss production. No IT == no business. So clearly not an overhead but a vital cog in the delivery of services/goods. It's silly to argue otherwise. It's also silly to try and save money on IT and have these frequent outages. I've worked for enough Fortune/FTSE 100 companies to know outages cause brand damage, and a well configured data center with appropriate Disaster Recovery (DR)/dual site operation is worth it's weight in gold. How would FEDEX or UPS manage if they lost IT for 24 hours every so often? The entire company would be at a standstill, all 500 planes and 50K employees sat idle until it comes back.

G
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 11:17
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I recall with fondness a 'Management' brief in BrainCrank, moons ago, attesting to the huge improvements anticipated with a "New Computer" at BA (BEA/BOAC).

Management droned on interminably highlighting the advantages, 65% less input here, 70% less work there, savings over 80% etc.etc
.
A grizzled old Flight Engineer in front of me kept putting his hand up seeking a question and was irritably ignored by the burbling speaker.
Eventually the Engineer managed a response and said. " Do I understand that buying this computer will reduce workloads by over 80% Plus?"
"Yes, Yes" replied management, clearly upset that someone had not appreciated his prolonged explanation

" Well", said the Engineer " My question is Why did we not buy Two!!

Meeting concluded with endless hilarity by all bar one!
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 11:56
  #51 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by groundbum
IT now is value added business essential, not once a month payroll or profit/loss production. No IT == no business. So clearly not an overhead but a vital cog in the delivery of services/goods.
That sounds like a pretty good definition of "critical infrastructure".

I'm not sure why we're getting so wound up about what accountants call things, when we all agree that airlines should be run not by them, but by pilots and engineers.
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Old 12th Aug 2019, 20:54
  #52 (permalink)  
 
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Before retirement I was a Computer power & environment specialist and carried out many Data Centre & Computer room surveys from small to large. One of the first questions asked was, how much per hour would the company loose if the room went down or would they still be in business. Only one company knew, Fidelity Finance in Tunbridge Wells, they had servers making over a million pounds an hour so the centre was perfect. Very rare. Visited an airlines data centre in a north London airport once, it was a total mess, running on the edge, if one aircon unit had failed the computers would have shut down due to exceeding temperature limits. Not a nice way to shut down, as machines just panic and crash leaving the software in a mess. I hope they have improved it since then. An example of a company that went under due to a system failure in their Slough date centre was Blackberry was not overnight but the begining of the end. Is BA on this slippery slope, I hope not but the cracks are staring to show.
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Old 13th Aug 2019, 14:55
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Dave, if you stick your human factors head on separate from a business/accounting head, words matter. Classifying something as a cost creates a negative bias in the minds of those making decisions, which influences their whole perception of that function and how they treat it.

We work very hard on how we communicate to avoid all sorts of bias, and there is material for a number of PhDs in the sociology and psychology of accountancy, but because they don’t directly kill people when they get it wrong, it isn’t a growth field.
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Old 13th Aug 2019, 16:23
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Originally Posted by Jwscud
Classifying something as a cost creates a negative bias in the minds of those making decisions, which influences their whole perception of that function and how they treat it.
I don't understand that argument.

Fuel is a cost, crews are a cost, airport charges are a cost, IT is a cost ...
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Old 13th Aug 2019, 17:00
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
I don't understand that argument.

Fuel is a cost, crews are a cost, airport charges are a cost, IT is a cost ...
Exactly the issue. Decision makers try to reduce costs, and we know efficiencies are squeezed out of all of those examples you've given wherever possible. A saving on an IT system would be very tempting as anything costing the business money will be under intense scrutiny.
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Old 13th Aug 2019, 17:28
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A smart business these days will realise that with every employee and every customer and potential customer having a smartphone (aka mini-computer) in their hand then IT can be leveraged to do perform so much business transformation. Look at any business and they're using IT to be agile. Look at any Government department and see how they insist on doing things some convoluted way that almost seems designed to be as labour intensive as possible. I despair when Police programs are on TV and a pair of cops will waste hours establishing somebody's ID, when a $1000 fingerprint device in every car will do it in seconds. All airlines now have eliminated paper wherever possible. It's madness to pennies on the infrastructure required to keep it all running.

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Old 14th Aug 2019, 13:50
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
I don't have an MBA, having resisted pressure to do one (ironically, while I was working at BA), but you don't need one to recognise that IT, for an airline, is both an overhead (in accounting terms) and critical infrastructure (in operational terms).

I'm mystified that there's any argument about this.
Absolutely agree, the poster was using terms s/he apparently did not understand.
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 14:00
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
I don't understand that argument.

Fuel is a cost, crews are a cost, airport charges are a cost, IT is a cost ...
I don't understand it, either. In presenting a business case, you are demonstrating that the costs are necessary to generate revenues that provide a margin. If you argue the case properly, spending the right amount of money is important in obtaining value for money, rather than the cheapest solution. Ergo having a properly maintained and viable IT infrastructure is a critical success factor in running an airline (not the only one) and thus requires the right amount of overhead being budgetted to do the job properly - to fail to provide the monetary resources (in capex and opex) is risking company/brand reputation and competitive position.

One doesn't need to have an MBA to understand this, I don't either and I don't teach on MBA classes.
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Old 14th Aug 2019, 14:15
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The Vendors who supply the IT systems, Fuel etc etc etc, like to be known as 'Enablers' now days and are refer to themselves as 'Partners' not 'Suppliers'.



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Old 14th Aug 2019, 14:24
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Originally Posted by Final 3 Greens
I don't understand it, either. In presenting a business case, you are demonstrating that the costs are necessary to generate revenues that provide a margin. If you argue the case properly, spending the right amount of money is important in obtaining value for money, rather than the cheapest solution. Ergo having a properly maintained and viable IT infrastructure is a critical success factor in running an airline (not the only one) and thus requires the right amount of overhead being budgetted to do the job properly - to fail to provide the monetary resources (in capex and opex) is risking company/brand reputation and competitive position.

One doesn't need to have an MBA to understand this, I don't either and I don't teach on MBA classes.
While the monthly expenses and/or deprecation for a certain infrastructure projects are well defined, risks associated with failures mitigated by these are not. Risk is probability of occurence multiplied by damage and neither is clear until the event finaly set in and are therfore subject to manoeuvering, whitewashing, sugercoating. What attention gets a once in a decade or a semi-centurial event by decision-makers focused on the next quarterly?
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