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Running Head: Technology Failure in The British Airline 1

In August 2019, British Airline experienced a major technology failure that significantly disrupted flights. The airline's flight management system and online check-in system failed, delaying over 500 flights and stranding tens of thousands of passengers. The failures had ripple effects across European airports and caused the airline major reputational and financial damages through compensation costs and lost customers. While unexpected, the document notes that technology failures are an inherent risk for systems due to issues like outages, hacking, and hardware problems. The airline had response teams to communicate with customers but the incident still negatively impacted operations and the customer experience.

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james kariri
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60 views4 pages

Running Head: Technology Failure in The British Airline 1

In August 2019, British Airline experienced a major technology failure that significantly disrupted flights. The airline's flight management system and online check-in system failed, delaying over 500 flights and stranding tens of thousands of passengers. The failures had ripple effects across European airports and caused the airline major reputational and financial damages through compensation costs and lost customers. While unexpected, the document notes that technology failures are an inherent risk for systems due to issues like outages, hacking, and hardware problems. The airline had response teams to communicate with customers but the incident still negatively impacted operations and the customer experience.

Uploaded by

james kariri
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Running Head: TECHNOLOGY FAILURE IN THE BRITISH AIRLINE 1

Technology Failure in the British Airline

Course of study

University
TECHNOLOGY FAILURE IN THE BRITISH AIRLINE 2

Technology Failure in the British Airline

We depend on IT to support our livelihood in many professions. Unfortunately, there have been a
series of failures around the world. Failures in software wreak havoc.In this case, I look at the IT failure
in British Airline that Occurred in August 2019. The flight management system failed, and the online
check-in was not accessible.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k6653822-light_internet_booking_problems_refund-
Air_Travel.html

The software was used by the airline for airline schedules, reservation of passengers, and
recording of tickets. The management system supported internet-based or mobile-based access through
mobile application mode of making reservations.

https://thenextweb.com/insider/2019/08/07/british-airways-system-failure-causes-delays-and-infinite-
queues-again/

The failure forced delays in travel, cancellations, rescheduling of more than 500 flights on August
7, 2019. Many other airports such as Heathrow, London Gatwick Airport hub, and London city airport
were significantly affected by the failure. Other destinations across Europe were also affected due to the
“domino effects” where many expected flights did not arrive. According to reports, tens of thousands of
customers experienced long and winding queues or stranded or significantly delayed.

This kind of failure is referred to as a technical failure, which includes the error of a technology-
based system supporting an operation. As a technical failure that affects the core business of the
company.

https://www.ft.com/content/a801e602-b900-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203

The collapse had various effects; for instance, many passengers who had to cancel their flight
feared that the system many experience more challenges mid-air or a greater disaster might happen. The
airline went into high losses in compensating passengers. It also lost a reputation as customers started
seeing it as unreliable, since technology failure may relapse anytime in the future.

According to the information available, the designers, maintainers, and users were not aware of
the imminent failure of the system. It happened just like any other unexpected problems in IT systems.
However, since the IT systems are always prone to technical failures caused by challenges with power
outages, connectivity issues, hacking, and hardware problems, they should have known that they can fail
anytime. For instance, the passengers who are the most affected party in this case needed to be ready for
some delay sometimes, or even cancellation due to system failures. This will reduce stress as such
problems unfold.

The effects of the failures had been known. The airline management had always been in terms of
the repercussions of such shortcomings. That’s why they had put a standby response team to
TECHNOLOGY FAILURE IN THE BRITISH AIRLINE 3

communicate to clients on the challenges. This was to cool the customers and avoid them from reacting
so negatively to the problems.
TECHNOLOGY FAILURE IN THE BRITISH AIRLINE 4

Reference

Tiggy43_13. (2013, July 8). Flight internet booking problems & refund - Air Travel Forum. Retrieved
February 7, 2020, from https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k6653822-
Flight_internet_booking_problems_refund-Air_Travel.html

Conboye, J. (2019, August 7). IT failure affects thousands of British Airways passengers. Retrieved
February 7, 2020, from https://www.ft.com/content/a801e602-b900-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203

Mix. (2019, August 7). British Airways system failure causes delays and infinite queues. Retrieved
February 7, 2020, from https://thenextweb.com/insider/2019/08/07/british-airways-system-
failure-causes-delays-and-infinite-queues-again/

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