If one bit of air travel tech fails – it falls like dominospublished at 10:59 GMT
Tom Gerken
Technology reporter
If this outage today feels somewhat familiar to you, there’s
a good reason.
In August this year, United Airlines had what it called a “technology
issue” that grounded flights. One month earlier, Alaska Airlines had an IT
issue which cancelled them.
And of course, a year and a half ago, a significant issue
with cyber security firm CrowdStrike grounded thousands of flights globally.
The reality is that air travel is complicated. The tech
which keeps everything working interacts in all sorts of ways, whether it’s
checking the weight of the plane or – as appears to be the case here – how air
traffic control functions.
If one single bit of tech fails, it’s like dominos.
And as we know from previous outages, even when the problem
is finally resolved, it will still take a while to bring everything back.
