Delta computer crash, causing flight delays and cancellations, shouldn't have happened, experts say

Behind the four big players in the U.S. airline industry – American, United, Delta and Southwest – there is a tangled computer system pieced together after decades of mergers that married mix-matched networks.

Just what went wrong with Delta's system Monday that caused hundreds of cancellations and delays is still being sorted out. Was it a power outage, as Delta says? Or was it an internal computer glitch?

In either case, airline and computer experts say, it shouldn't have happened. Computer systems and their electric power sources should have foolproof backups, they say.

But there may be more of the same airline problems in the months to come as long-term reverberations follow on a tumultuous decade of mergers that swiftly consolidated the industry.

"These [remaining] airlines have long histories: 20 years of cobbled together systems," said Rick Seaney, who parlayed a computer science degree from Stephen F. Austin State University into creation of FareCompare.com, a consumer search engine for ticket prices. "It's difficult to integrate older technology. They have hundreds and hundreds of cobbled together things that they have to track down to make sure everything is working correctly."

Before Monday, the most recent evidence of airline computer system problems came last month, when Southwest Airlines needed several days to fully recover from a collapse in its systems that resulted in more than 2,300 cancellations and 8,000 late flights.

Southwest absorbed a new and different computer system when it acquired AirTran six years ago. The airline now is investing millions of dollars in the creation of a new computer system intended to replace its aging network.

American Airlines, which finalized its merger with US Airways last year, is working hard to marry the two systems.

"American's about to, in the next month and a half or two, start to integrate USAirways systems," Seaney said. "Typically, when you're trying to do a cut over like that, you pick a weekend when you have slow traffic just in case you have glitches."

Since the turn of the century, American has absorbed TWA. USAirways merged with American West, and then with American. Delta merged with Northwest. United merged with Continental.

Bijan Vasigh, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, said it may be time for airlines to invest in totally new computer systems to replace the patchwork networks now in place.

"The cost [of Monday's shutdown] should be huge for Delta Airlines," he said "I'm sure that they will try to revisit this issue."

Airlines rely on their computer systems to manage a myriad of operations, including obvious elements like reservations and ticketing, and behind the scenes management of plane movement, gate assignments, air crew scheduling and even the displays on arrival-departure screens at many airports.

Delta's computer system failure came at the height of the summer travel system, and on a Monday when many business travelers head to airports to begin their work week. Vasigh pointed out that it could have been worse.

"Imagine if this event had happened during Thanksgiving or Christmas; this would be catastrophic for the airline," Vasigh said. "Recapturing those passengers and accommodating them would be a nightmare."

But the failure of computer software or the loss of electrical power should not cripple an airline, experts agreed.

"Anytime you have a system-wide outage it either has to be one of the core systems or some sort of networking glitch," Seaney said. "All computer systems have redundancy. Typically, almost all companies – especially if you have credit card data – are required to be spread out, sometimes across different countries, to make sure that basically [their network] never goes down."

They also have backup power, he said.

"If you have any sort of critical infrastructure you have gasoline power backups for at least 24 hours," Seaney said. "Typically what you have is two or three hours of battery backup and another 24 to 48 hours of gasoline powered back up."

Delta said its computers stopped working at 2:30 a.m. Monday. Shortly before 9 a.m. the airline lifted a self-imposed ground stop and began resuming limited operations, but told passengers "If your flight is canceled or significantly delayed, you are entitled to a refund. Even if your flight is not canceled, you may make a one-time change to your ticket without fee."

In a later statement, the airline said: "We are aware that flight status systems, including airport screens, are incorrectly showing flights on time," the airline said in a statement. "We apologize to customers who are affected by this issue, and our teams are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible."