Delta delays

So, anyone else boned by today's Delta blackout?

My dear wife was scheduled to fly from Denver back to Florida on a redeye this morning. I'm guessing that her flight was one of the first ones delayed. It's now a quarter to 8 p.m., and she just landed in Atlanta. She's booked on the last flight into Daytona tonight. It's marked as late but still happening. If it lands as currently scheduled, that makes it a 24-hour trip, all after being away for a full day.

My SIL got out of Atlanta as the confusion was taking hold. Couldn't find her seat, and she is a nervous sort anyway.

My boss and quite a few from work are/were stranded by Delta. I'm glad I didn't have a flight scheduled this week.
So, a power outage in Atlanta caused a global meltdown? Somebody is going to be having a VERY uncomfortable meeting after all of this.
Atlanta is the worst place I've ever had to fly through. I will go way out of my way to avoid Atlanta.

DrBoost wrote: Atlanta is the worst place I've ever had to fly through. I will go way out of my way to avoid Atlanta.

Sorry, but the old saying is "you have to go through Atlanta to get to Hell".

I'll take flying through Atlanta over O'Hare any day.

Back when I was a frequent traveller, that announcement would have sent me to the hotel pool until they got their stuff together. Not way I would have dealt with that chaos.

2.5 hour delay from Indy to Minneapolis, luckily my connecting flight was also delayed so that i had 20 minutes before it boarded and it was only 2 gates over from where i came into. Ended up getting into Omaha only 1.5 hours later then scheduled so all things considered it wasnt terrible but i had a later flight, was suppose to fly out at 4:10 PM so things were less bad by then.

When i got to the Indy airport there was a line for everyone that got boned that morning and people in it where saying they had been in line for 3+ hours trying to get different flights which had to suck bad.

Until yesterday, I thought hilariously centralized computer systems that took out whole important systems across an entire planet only existed in bad sci-fi movies.

DrBoost wrote: So, a power outage in Atlanta caused a global meltdown? Somebody is going to be having a VERY uncomfortable meeting after all of this.

My dad has done some work in their data center. He told me that the facility is powered by two dedicated circuits from Georgia Power, redundant backup generators, and hordes of battery backups. If this incident was indeed the result of a 'power outage' it was likely caused either by a fire or sabotage.

nderwater wrote:

DrBoost wrote: So, a power outage in Atlanta caused a global meltdown? Somebody is going to be having a VERY uncomfortable meeting after all of this.

My dad has done some work in their data center. He told me that the facility is powered by two dedicated circuits from Georgia Power, redundant backup generators, and hordes of battery backups. If this incident was indeed the result of a 'power outage' it was likely caused either by a fire or sabotage.

So they knew that this one data center was the "Jesus nut" of their flight planning and instead of fixing the problem, they tried to make really really sure that it wouldn't go down.

They should have used the cloud! The cloud is always the solution!

I'm looking forward to finding out just what took that center down in the nerdy news. Could be an interesting case study.

My friend just tried to get on a Delta flight and the flight was cancelled after quite a delay because they COULDN'T FIND THE PILOTS.

KatieSuddard wrote: My friend just tried to get on a Delta flight and the flight was cancelled after quite a delay because they COULDN'T FIND THE PILOTS.

Did they look in the bar?

Still better than Spirit.

mtn wrote: Still better than Spirit.

So is Greyhound.

Had this happen with Continental several years ago. Everything delayed but did work fine later in the day. Mainly affected Houston but unfortunately I had to pass through Houston. Computer crash caused that one. A couple years ago took me 2 days to get from Fairbanks, Alaska to Alabama during the ice storm that virtually shut down Dallas.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

The cloud ain't the way for flight safety critical operations. Maybe other delta systems could go to the cloud but you'd be crazy to give that stuff to aws.

EvanR wrote:

mtn wrote: Still better than Spirit.

So is Greyhound.

Shoe leather beats spirit or frontier.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: In reply to GameboyRMH: The cloud ain't the way for flight safety critical operations. Maybe other delta systems could go to the cloud but you'd be crazy to give that stuff to aws.

I don't think he was suggesting the cloud, I think he was expecting a more distributed server framework.

i try to drive as much as possible when i travel for work. The problem is work doesnt tend to agree with that being a good idea. but i can usually get away with it if its less then a 7 hour drive because to go from anywhere to anywhere via plane (unless its a direct flight) is going to be 4-5 hours of getting to the airport, dealing with airport things, and getting out of the airport. And that is with zero delays or issues.

edizzle89 wrote: i try to drive as much as possible when i travel for work. The problem is work doesnt tend to agree with that being a good idea. but i can usually get away with it if its less then a 7 hour drive because to go from anywhere to anywhere via plane (unless its a direct flight) is going to be 4-5 hours of getting to the airport, dealing with airport things, and getting out of the airport. And that is with zero delays or issues.

At my old job it was usually a 7-8 hour drive before it made sense to fly. Pretty much every single air flight involved either a rental car for 3 hours and then a flight, or else a 30 minute flight to a major airport for your real flight. I remember getting to Memphis was particularly silly--it required 13 hours of travel for flying vs. about 8 for driving.

My wife finally made it home--only about 27 hours late.

My drive number was 5 hours in the car then I flew.

I would say my flight from Binghamton to Norfolk saved me an hour vs driving. Going to FL flying would be a no brainier if I had the $$$, but doable if I had a second driver. Beyond that I only want to drive if it is supposed to be a road trip.