The Airline Industry’s Problem with Absolutely Ancient IT

As an IT professional, corps VERY rarely replace or upgrade hardware until it literally is about to burst or already burst. Its VERY frustrating. Ive been used as a scapegoat for this shit before too.

I promise that the last 15 years the IT dept has done nothing except warn higher ups of an impending failure of the system, and the higher ups likely said 'We'll think about it' while stretching the backbone of their company on box fans pointed at server racks in rooms where the AC failed 5 years ago. Always prepare for the worst, because the worst WILL happen given enough time, and however much it costs to prepare, I promise it'll be cheaper than waiting for the worst to happen.

The fact that literally 40 years after taking my first flight I still can't purchase an airline ticket using my full and correct legal last name because it contains a hyphen is mind-blowing to me. That really says everything you need to know about the airline industry's IT systems.

I no longer consider Southwest to be a "low-cost airline." Its fares are often right in line and sometimes higher than the traditional big carriers.

As an ex-travel industry employee (thanks, Covid), seeing that GDS screen gave me some PTSD. Travel agents call it 'flightmares' - stress thinking about doing something wrong in the GDS system (which can result in expensive fines from the airlines if you break booking rules accidentally that the system allows) or having to do some major re-booking. I don't miss flight bookings at all!

As someone who works in IT, it is completely unsurprising that this is the case. You'd be appalled by just how many vitally important things run on highly outdated tech. This is usually because the cost, manpower, and time required to replace it is often absolutely monumental. So company bigwigs stick with "well if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Even the pentagon still has critical systems that run on windows 95 and 98. Not saying it's right or the best way of doing things, but there's usually more to the story than just pure money or greed in these cases. Nothing in this field is ever as simple as just pressing a few buttons on a keyboard or unplugging a device and plugging a new one in.

I'm a computer scientist from germany and I knew the guy who came up with a similar system for German Rail. Whenever he heard about a delay of a train he stood there for a while frozen calculating the delays impact for the whole network.

as someone who works in IT, you'd be surprised how much critical infrastructure runs on ancient, fragile code written many decades ago but hidden through a nice, modern interface

Airline consultant here: this is INSANE. The fact that you included information that even I didn't know is beyond amazing. I only today realized how much research goes into these videos like...insane, even the internal tools wow. Great great job!!!

I finally retired from IT after 40+ years in it. We would beg and plead with management to spend more money on staffing, upgrades, etc., all to no avail. Then, when something finally did break, it was, somehow, all our fault. Of course, that never stopped them from spending money to implement the latest fad in software development or whatever and trying to shove it down our throats, thus making it even more difficult to do our jobs. Feh!

My father worked in ticketing many years until retirement. He used to work with an Amadeus terminal and type the most complicated reservations on the command line by hand. He then was unable to work with a windows computer or use the mouse 😂 This brought good memories, thanks for the video.

Thanks for your proper voiceover with natural pauses. So sick of lazy YouTubers who splice a thousand edits together, chopping out all pauses and creating a never-ending barrage of words where you don't have a chance to think or absorb the info.

Ah yeah... The old Story of "technical dept". Technicians always warn and management never listens.

I work for a software consulting company. Basically my job is to write custom software for businesses. So naturally, I deal with technical debt on a daily basis. It can be very frustrating at times because we are not in control of whether or not the hulking old system is replaced or improved. That's in the hands of our clients. We can always advise, but never command. However, when we are actually contracted to replace or improve old systems, my job suddenly becomes amazing. The level of impact I can have is staggering. My work can affect people all over my state, or even all over my country. I love doing this kind of work, but I have to be asked to do it, and given the money and time to do it right. If you're out there and you're in charge, take a good, hard look at your systems and ask whether they could be considered modern and efficient. Ask what the cost of failure is. Then do something about it, before the whole thing caves in.

The “reverse tragedy of the commons” you described is basically the prisoner’s dilemma, mutual cooperation is beneficial on aggregate but individual non-cooperation is locally better

This "Good Enough" mentality with accountability only to the share holders is honestly one of the most pressing problems we have today, period. Not just in the airline industry, but in industry altogether. It's a primary driving factor in the income gap eroding the functional middle class, driving a portion of global inflation and encouraging corporate corruption on a massive level.

My mom worked for Air Canada in reservations and bookings in the late 60's and early 70's. They had one of the most up to date systems at the time. It sounds like not much has changed since then, and that she could literally do the same job 50 years later with almost no additional training. (She still remembers most of the 3 letter airport codes too!)

The fact that airlines don't yet extort every passenger individually is the only good thing in this story

If tax dollars are used to bail them out, they should be held to a general standard regardless of what it will cost them. And that's the end of it.

My friend is studying aviation (basically pilot degree) and they asked me if I wanted to see their flight computer. As someone studying computer science, I find computers very interesting. They pull out a paper with a paper wheel pinned on and hand it to me. I was so confused.