back to article Amadeus booking software outages smack airports across world

A network failure affecting the Amadeus online booking platform is continuing to delay check-ins for passengers around the world, although the firm won't disclose the cause. Multiple airlines using the Amadeus reservation system told The Register that passenger check-in and/or airline booking systems went offline around 10.30 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'we experienced a network issue '

    Anyone else utterly tired of these vanilla corporate statements.

    Where's the media of any type to challenge this. All cowering?...

    ~~~

    #1. We got hacked....

    But its too toxic to admit, so we'll wait for weeks before owning up...

    ~

    #2. We unplugged something....

    But didn't have any redundancy or procedures for a proper reboot.

    ~

    #3.

    We shitcanned staff and outsourced something....

    We shouldn't have to a 3rd party who screwed us. Now its too late!

    ~

    1. TechnicianJack

      Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

      #4.

      We gambled paying the absolute minimum amount running and maintaining this system, despite our IT staff telling us that it was a bad idea. We've now lost the gamble and the outage and subsequent repair work has now cost us more than it would have cost to invest the required money to maintain it at a decent standard to start with so it didn't fail.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

        #5 - "We haven't a clue what we've done, but it wasn't good whatever it was"

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

          #6 We're going to blame "the network", because it sounds plausible.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

            'we experienced a network issue '

            "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more"

          2. Dazed and Confused

            Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

            #6 We're going to blame "the network", because it sounds plausible.

            Or more likely because it sounds like it might be someone else's fault so just maybe we'll get away with it.

            Remember it's not important what went wrong, the important thing is how you lay the blame.

            1. yoganmahew

              Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

              Or - #7 We applied a path to the big Cisco thing and as planned it auto-failed over. Unplannedly, the over didn't take the traffic and sat there mewling... Again!

              Or - #8 Every airline in the world is doing their summer/winter schedule at the same time and our more than half traffic capacity node has become a less than half traffic capacity and half of it failed...

              1. Commswonk

                Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

                Further to #8...

                #9: Ryanair, who have screwed things up by cancelling a shedload of flights.

                1. Mark 110

                  Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

                  So I guess you guys have never done a bit of routine security patching you have done a zillion times before and suddenly the shit has hit the proverbial?

                  That's never happened to anyone has it? Particularly when those oh so predictable network protocols that have always protected you from this shit before are involved? Cos they never ever ever do something unpredictable and downright weird do they? Ever!

                  1. James Anderson

                    Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

                    Hardware fails, things go wrong in ways you never thought possible.

                    Any serious professional has been there. The point is they recovered pretty quickly and given the volume of traffic they deal with 0.001% of their customers were affected.

                  2. Disk0
                    Holmes

                    Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

                    On to #10 it is then: "We were overconfidently changing things without proper research, test runs or rollback options because we just enjoy pressuring IT-staff into jeopardizing continuity and then blaming them for not getting the job done with only half of the resources needed. Of course we made sure no C-levels will be taking responsibility for operational integrity, that is why we blame the "network" instead of our own shortsightedness."

                  3. Disk0

                    Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

                    On to #10 it is then: "We were overconfidently changing things without proper research, test runs or rollback options because we just enjoy pressuring IT-staff into jeopardizing continuity and then blaming them for not getting the job done with only half of the resources needed. Of course we made sure no C-levels will be taking responsibility for operational integrity, that is why we blame the "network" instead of our own shortsightedness."

                    " Always expect outages. There are no unexpected outages, just outages you did not prepare for."

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

            and it is run by SITA and so we will blame them.

    2. macjules

      Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

      Second time this year for certain. Hopefully by 2017 they no longer rely upon agents only using IE7, as they did in 2012.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

        agents only using IE7

        You are overly-optimistic, the full functionality till this day requires a terminal and is usually used via a terminal.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

      "Where's the media of any type to challenge this. All cowering?..."

      All busy blaming Russia.

    4. GX5000
      Trollface

      Re: 'we experienced a network issue '

      Seriously who down-voted this? lol

  2. Flywheel

    Obligatory CommitStrip reference

    Hmmm.. second time today I've used this link.

    http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2017/09/25/when-youve-thought-of-everything-almost/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Obligatory CommitStrip reference

      That one's decent. This one's (a bit) better, as the site is more interesting:

      http://oglaf.com/salvage/

      Wonder if Amadeus has seagull lawyers?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We used the cloud.

  4. TRT Silver badge

    Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

    they say it was down to "A single faulty switch".

    Queue the commentards' helpful suggestions about putting a cover over them so that they cannot be inadvertently pressed.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

      *cue

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

        No, I think that there's a lot of them.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

          It was supposed to be queue of commentards. So I did make a mistake.

      2. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

        Apparently, it was this post that pushed me into silver badge territory. I'm not sure if that's ironic or appropriate.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

        You missed the pun? Queue vs Cue?

        Yes Queue them all to 'ell !!

    2. sanmigueelbeer

      Re: Meanwhile over on the Daily Fail...

      It was triggered by an issue in a faulty switch during network maintenance.

      The phrase "faulty switch" and "network maintenance" in a single sentence doesn't bode well.

      Translation: The switch booted with a corrupt software or NO software is what I can discern.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "10.30 GMT (0930 UTC)"

    Shouldn't that be "BST" (or something) instead of "GMT" ?

    Or is Greenwich Mean Time (but not UTC) now following summer/winter switching?

    Confused on the Continent

    1. Mark 65

      Re: "10.30 GMT (0930 UTC)"

      From Google...

      Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is time at the Shepherd Gate Clock, at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, UK. GMT stays the same all year round, no Daylight Saving Time ( DST ) rules apply. London time is now BST (British Summer Time) or GMT+1

  6. DryBones
    Devil

    Rock Me, Amadeus.

    \m/

    1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

      Re: Rock Me, Amadeus.

      We will rock you...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk

  7. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Onto #11 : The network appy had a shufty at the master console, and managed to b0rk something, mistakenly thinking he was logged onto the training console...

  8. EnviableOne
    Boffin

    Sounds like a disaterously configured spanning tree issue

    Sounds like they need to replace their "nobody got fired for buying" Cisco with the equipment of someone who can handle a switch going down without all this STP nonsense....

  9. Scroticus Canis
    Trollface

    So many airlines chose the same single point of failure.

    Wonder why?

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