Delta Computer Failure Grounds Flights Worldwide After Power Outage

Tens of thousands of Delta passengers around the world were grounded indefinitely Monday after a power outage caused a system-wide computer failure.

Check-in systems, airport screens and even the airline's website and smartphone apps are affected by the problem, which began at 2:48 a.m. ET.

The Atlanta-based airline suspended departures until the problem can be fixed, while airport agents wrote out boarding passes by hand.

"Our systems are down everywhere," the airline told customers on Twitter.

"A power outage in Atlanta, which began at 2:38 a.m. ET, has impacted Delta computer systems and operations worldwide, resulting in flight delays and cancellations today," the airline said in a statement.

Delta Computer Failure Grounds Flights Worldwide After Power Outage

A global shutdown of all flights due to a power outage?! Seems crazy that they didn't have a backup of some sort for these kinds of things.

I don't recall anything like this happening before. Hopefully it's an easy fix.

I'm flying on Delta later this week, hopefully it's cleared up by then.

Found this to be interesting though without more info it's hard to validate anything. Taken from the article on the front page of CNN.COM the pilot in this tweet claims it was a hack. Again, for me, without any info I put no credence in his claim as too many people jump to hack first when a network goes down but still worth listing it.

Scott Gottlieb, MD ✔ @ScottGottliebMD
Delta woe: sitting on runway at LGA shuttle, grounded. pilot says it was a hack. Can't take off because computer "can't track us" #deltafail

a reply to: ghostrager

It's actually happened quite a few times, to many airlines. Everything is tied to the central hub so they can keep track of all their flights and see who is running late and why. That hub goes down, and everyone goes with it.

a reply to: opethPA

Pilot probably did say it was. The airlines are always quick to blame outside forces for any problems so they're limited in what compensation they have to offer.

So already two scenarios?
You'd think if Delta is bsaed in Atlanta, they would have their server at the airport, which would likely have back-up generators anyway.

Boardings cards? who wants to brood inside an aircraft that's going nowhere!

The Southwest airlines central flight booking operations went down just a couple weeks ago.
Not sure how that would be related?

originally posted by: Cauliflower
The Southwest airlines central flight booking operations went down just a couple weeks ago.
Not sure how that would be related?

Why would it be related?
Complex things break eventually so without more info it's hard to tie one into the other.

a reply to: opethPA

Know anybody in ALPA we can ask?
What happened at London Heathrow last week?

While that certainly seems frustrating, I'd rather be grounded than be permitted to get on a plane that can't be tracked.

-Alee

The following update is out there now which is equal parts a good sign and bad thing for those who have a cancelled flight...


"Delta says flights resuming but massive cancellations still expected"

Something similar to this was happening about 10 days ago to American.

a reply to: ghostrager

Seems to be a bad time to be traveling.

Related to Edward Snowden perhaps..
Trying to box him in ?

originally posted by: Spacespider
Related to Edward Snowden perhaps..
Trying to box him in ?

What? No. Just no.

Seems like its a failure of the UPS system to provide power as and when needed, this is always a problem with computer systems that you need to be able to test fall over and see how it goes but in a 24x7 world you just cannot take the risk so it never gets a proper test and thus when needed you go "oh *&^%".

a reply to: Maxatoria

I've worked for multiple organizations that tested disaster recovery fail-over regularly. It can be tested, even the "our datacenter becomes a smoking hole in the ground"-type scenario.

It doesn't make sense to me that Delta could not simply fail over to their DR site, unless:
1) They don't have an appropriate or fully-capable DR site
2) The problem affected both the production system/site and the DR system/site (or somehow prevented the ability to fail over)
3) It's something else causing it, other than what is being reported

Systems are back up and running. With the power outage we can not track/issue/change tickets. The planes fly just fine and those in the air made it safely to their destinations. It is all about passenger ticketing and the ability to issue seat assignments as it were.

there has been NO reported hack of any kind...period.
I got to work at 4 am and found out the hard way what the system/programs that were affected.

a reply to: PrairieShepherd


Not all applications are failover capable.
Too many unknowns to get into Technical discussions anyway..

a reply to: beercan

Agreed, on both points.

I only mentioned it because it just seems strange to me that a company as large as Delta would not have rock-solid DR/business continuity procedures for power, security, and database systems at a minimum.

Meh. Maybe I'm looking too hard at it and it's really nothing more than what's reported.

They need a single server in order to ensure that the same flight seat isn't booked simultaneously from two different agents. They can back up transactions in real time, and maybe have a shadow server that takes over if the first one fails. They probably even have backup generators and UPS. But if a digger cuts through the fibre optics internet connections or their internet connection goes down that's just as bad. Normally, tech companies will have servers scattered across the globe, so that if there is a natural disaster in one areas, the others can take over.