[00:00.10]The power outage at Delta Airlines this week took down computers
[00:05.72] and stranded thousands of travelers from New York to Tokyo.
[00:12.02]It was just the latest in a series of computer-related issues that have disrupted other U.S. airlines.
[00:21.08]Delta said it canceled about 900 flights Monday out of a total of 6,000 worldwide.
[00:30.84]Nearly 800 were canceled Tuesday and hundreds more were delayed.
[00:38.54]By Wednesday most flights had resumed,
[00:42.77] although Delta said it expected about 100 more cancellations.
[00:49.19]Delta is investigating the outage,
[00:53.78]which hit the airline's computer systems early Monday in Atlanta, Georgia.
[01:00.55]The company said after power was lost,
[01:06.05]“some critical systems and network equipment”
[01:10.10] didn't switch to backup as they were supposed to.
[01:15.01]In a video message posted online,
[01:18.65]Delta CEO Ed Bastian apologized to passengers for the shutdown.
[01:26.21]"I'm sorry that it happened and I don't have the final analysis (on) what caused the outage."
[01:34.84]Bastian noted that over the last three years,
[01:39.54]Delta had spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" on technology upgrades.
[01:46.45]He said the upgrades included
[01:49.84]backup system improvements intended to prevent what happened this week.
[01:57.28]Three weeks ago, Southwest Airlines experienced a similar outage
[02:04.41]and the company canceled 2,300 flights over four days.
[02:10.09]The airline said in that incident, a computer network router failed
[02:17.78]at its Dallas data center and backup systems did not switch on.
[02:23.81]JetBlue computers went out several times this year due to power and other issues.
[02:32.85]The outages caused widespread flight delays and forced employees
[02:41.00] to check in passengers without computers.
[02:42.41]The operations center that lost power monitors all of Delta's worldwide flights.
[02:50.73]It also keeps track of individual planes, crew and passengers, and operates sales and ticketing.
[03:00.60]Dr. Ahmed Abdelghany is an Associate Professor of Operations Management
[03:08.45]at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
[03:14.34]He said computer outages are significant because they affect all airline operations
[03:22.62]and require a complete “reset” of the system.
[03:26.78]"As an airline, you are required to rebuild as if you are rebuilding your schedule of the flights,
[03:34.07] the crew and the ground personnel.
[03:36.33]And you have to do that in no time."
[03:39.03]Abdelghany, who worked for several years as a senior technology analyst at United Airlines,
[03:46.14]said the fact that Delta's backup systems failed is a big concern.
[03:52.42]"Of course it is a big problem if your backup system also didn't work.
[03:58.72]This is like an unforgivable mistake.
[04:00.27]You cannot afford that you say I have a backup system
[04:02.63]and then when you need it, it doesn't work."
[04:04.58]Martin Libicki is a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy
[04:09.62] and an adjunct professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
[04:15.61]He specializes in information technology and security issues.
[04:21.41]He said one of the main reasons backup systems fail is because they are not regularly tested.
[04:30.81]"And the reason they don't work is because people think, well they're backups,
[04:34.84]they'll be there when I need it.
[04:35.85]And they don't test it, and when they' need it, it doesn't come on.
[04:38.98]If you are going to have a reliable backup system,
[04:41.39]you have to go to it all the time, just to make sure that it runs all the time."
[04:45.51]Libicki said one possible cause of backup failures in both the Delta
[04:52.37]and Southwest outages could have been a malware infection.
[04:58.62]This is what investigators determined
[05:01.69]caused a huge power outage in the Northeastern United States in 2003.
[05:08.18]The malware infection in that case affected a power company's outage warning system.
[05:15.87]"That creates a possibility that there is a piece of malware out there -
[05:22.16]which somehow interferes with the transition from backup to main system -
[05:28.90] that prevented in both cases
[05:30.78]backup from coming to the rescue when the main system went down."
[05:36.55]Professor Abdelghany said Delta did a good job
[05:38.86] informing its customers about the outage and trying to accommodate their needs.
[05:44.98]But he thinks all the airlines
[05:47.64] should do more to explain what steps they are taking to avoid future outages.
[05:55.74]"We need to hear more about what they are doing
[06:00.90] to prevent those incidents from happening in the first place."
[06:04.66]I'm Bryan Lynn.
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