more on United computer outage

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: michael.berman () artcenter edu
Date: January 5, 2006 10:38:38 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: more on United computer outage
Reply-To: michael.berman () artcenter edu

A "processor" failure??!! djf

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=175801206



United Airlines Computer Snafu Being Investigated

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Reservation and passenger-processing system outage left struggling  
airline unable to sell tickets for four hours.

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By Tony Kontzer
InformationWeek

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Jan 4, 2006 03:00 PM
United Airlines, Cendant Corp., and IBM are jointly investigating the  
root cause of a computer malfunction that knocked out United's  
reservations and passenger-processing system for about 4 hours  
Tuesday evening, delaying 150 flights and preventing the airline from  
selling tickets during the outage. No flights were canceled.

According to United and Cendant, a processor failure crippled  
United's Apollo system at about 6 p.m. ET, forcing airline employees  
to switch to backup manual processes, including writing luggage tags  
out by hands. The resulting slowdown in checking baggage and issuing  
boarding passes caused hour-long delays, on average, across United's  
170-plus-airport system. The 150 flights that were affected  
represented less than 5% of the airline's 3,400 daily flights. Most  
of the delays were centered on the East Coast as the outage came in  
the afternoon lull on the West Coast, and during the pre-dawn hours  
in Europe. "The timing certainly could have been worse," said a  
United spokesman.

Apollo is a Cendant-sold system that IBM manages out of a Cendant  
Travel Distribution Services data center in Denver. It was initially  
developed in the early 1970s by United, and was subsequently spun off  
into an independent reservations and distribution system operation.  
It was later combined with the Galileo Co. Ltd.; a distribution  
company formed by several European airlines, changed its name to  
Galileo International, and was acquired by Cendant in 2001 for $2.9  
billion. United is the only airline that uses Apollo as its  
reservations system today.

A Cendant spokeswoman said repairs to the system were completed at 10  
p.m. ET Tuesday, but could not provide any more details. "We're not  
going to want to speculate on what caused this."

Meanwhile, the United spokesman acknowledged that the airline's  
customers could not buy tickets during the outage, but he was  
uncertain what the financial impact on the airline would be.









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