The Biggest IT Failures of 2018

This year provedonce againthat IT-related failures “are universally unprejudiced: they happen in every country; to large companies and small; in commercial, nonprofit, and governmental organizations; and without regard to status or reputation.” Below is a review that just scratches the surface of the sundry failures, glitches, and other IT hiccups that made the news in 2018. This year saw a slight reduction in the number of flight cancellations and delays due to computer-related problems as compared with the past three years, especially in the United States.

Still, some significant incidents occurred. PSA Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines, experienced a problem with its crew scheduling and tracking system that led to nearly 3,000 flights being cancelled over seven days in June, and cost the airline an estimated US $35 million. American hadbrief outages of its ownin July and again in November, both blamed on connectivity issues.

Spirit Airlines had multiple IT issues in 2018, including problems in February and March, as well as a system-wide two-hour problem with its dispatching system in August, which delayeddozens of flights. A Southwest Airlines computer problem with its gate and lobby check-in systems at LAX in January lasted more than three hours, causinghundreds of flight delays across its system. Delta Airlines had a three-hour “physical device issue” in September, causing a system-wide ground stop for more thanan hour and the delay of some 600 flights.

Source: ieee.org