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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATIONAL
Airline computer failure causes more than 700 cancellations
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS — A key computer system used to run many daily operations at American Airlines failed Tuesday, forcing the nation's third-largest carrier to ground all flights across the United States for several hours and stranding thousands of frustrated passengers at airports and on planes.
Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations, but planes on the ground from coast to coast could not take off. And travelers could do little to get back in the air until the computer system was restored.
American blamed its reservation system, which is used for much more than booking flights. Airlines commonly rely on such systems to track passengers and bags, monitor who has boarded a plane and to update flight schedules and gate assignments. The computers are also used to file flight plans and to help determine how much fuel to put in an aircraft or which seats should be filled to ensure a plane is properly balanced.
The failure caused cascading delavs and cancellations nationwide.
As of mid-afternoon, American and its American Eagle offshoot canceled more than 700 flights and another 765 flights were delayed, according to tracking service Flight Aware.
The outage began in midmorning and stretched to the afternoon. The systems were fixed by 4:30 p.m., airline spokeswoman Stacey Frantz said.
But even as some flights took
At airports, customers whose flights were canceled couldn't rebook on a later flight. Passengers already at the airport were stuck in long lines or gate areas.
off, the airline expected delays and cancellations to persist for the rest of the day.
"Tensions are high. A lot of people are getting mad. I've seen several yelling at the American
agents, said Julie Burcle, a business-meeting speaker who was stuck at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport waiting for a flight to Denver. "Nobody can tell us anything."
Terry Anzur.
a TV news consultant from Los Angeles who was also stranded in Dallas, said American Airlines gate employees were doing everything the manual way because their computers were useless.
"No one at the counter can do anything. They can't check people in. The airline is at a dead halt."
Theoretically, an airline could do the same work as the reservation system manually for any one flight. But doing it for hundreds of flights isn't practical.
"No one at the counter can do anything. They can't check people in." Anzur said. "The airline is at a dead halt."
"There was a time when an airline could fly without a reservation system, but those days for the most part are past," said Scott Nason, American's former technology chief and now a consultant.
down, "Most airlines would be pretty much without the ability to fly more than a very limited number of flights," he added.
If their reservation systems go
During nearly 29 years at American, Nason recalled maybe one such failure every several years. While airlines can fix whatever caused the problem, "each time it's something different."
One time it was a possum chewing through a cable in Tulsa, bringing down the whole system. Another time a worker in the airline's data center used a metal tool instead of one that was rubber-coated, causing
TERRY ANZUR TV news consultant
that brought down substantia parts of the system, Nason said.
American's problems on Tuesday were reminiscent of what United Airlines passengers endured for several days last year. After merging with Continental, United experienced computer glitches in the combined reservation system. On one day in August, 580 United flights were delayed, and its website was shut down for two hours. Another outage in November delayed 636 flights.
The problems prompted an apology from United Continental Holdings Inc. CEO Jeff Smisek, who acknowledged that the airline had frustrated customers and would need to work to win them back.
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Abby Walsh, a student from St. Louis, leaves for a class that starts in two minutes. Students are often running five to 10 minutes late to class.
CAMPUS
Proper etiquette necessary for students late to class
HANNAH BARLING
hbarline@kansan.com
Running late to class is sometimes impossible to avoid, but there are ways to go about it without irritating your teachers.
Boniface Yemba, an economics discussion teacher, has a strict late policy for his students. If someone comes in later than five minutes, he considers them missing half the class. He said his main reason is related to the student's future professional life.
"If the student is trained to be on time every day, he will be a good professional," Yemba said.
Blair Evert, a sophomore from Wichita, said that one of her English teachers from last year was a stickler about being late. A student came about five minutes late into her class and the teacher stopped talking and stared down the student. She never had any problems with being late, but said the teacher had told them if they can't make it on time to drop the class.
Evert said to try and be as quiet as possible when coming in late to
avoid any awkward moments.
Barbara Barnett, associate dean for undergraduate studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, has softened her late policy after hearing from a student that they were afraid to come to class late even if they had a valid reason. She said the reason she is strict about students coming in late is because she is not only trying to teach a subject, but also professional behavior.
Barnett said she usually gets the cliche excuses of missing the bus, oversleeping and weather-related reasons. But one that stood out to her was when she was teaching at another university, a student came in thirty minutes late to a 9 a.m. class. When she asked why, he told her he was playing golf. She said that students should not cause distractions when coming in late.
"Be as invisible as you can possibly be," Barnett said.
Elaine Arbuckle, a sophomore from Lee's Summit, Mo., has never been locked out of a classroom because most of her teachers let it slide if students are running late.
She said that if she's more than 15 minutes late to a 50-minute lecture, she gives up and skips.
"My craziest excuse was that my coffee pot exploded coffee grounds all over my dorm room freshman year," Arbuckle said. "It was bubbling coffee soup."
Regardless of the reason or amount of time you are running late, be sure to be respectful to your teachers. Also, follow these five tips USA Today College gave on the etiquette of running late:
- Enter the room quietly and sit in the back or an aisle seat
- Never walk in front of the professor
- Don't make an announcement that you are late, or any disruptive comments at all
- Make it your responsibility to find out what you missed after class, not asking your neighbor as soon as you sit down
Apologize for being late, but skip the long-winded reason
- Edited by Ashleigh Tidwell
LITERATURE
Geography professor to discuss his new 'science mystery' novel
"How did we get to be so smart?" That's a question Jerry Dobson began asking, one that propelled him through intense research and eventually to the creation of "Waters of Chaos," a book that combines imaginative theory and scientific fact.
KRISTA MONTGOMERY
kmontgomery@kansan.com
Dobson, a professor of geogra
phy at the University of Kansas and president of the American Geographical Society, originally began the research to satisfy his own curiosity. However, as his theory developed, the scope became so broad he thought
"I wanted to bring out ideas in people that need to be discussed, and this book is a prompt for those ideas."
JERRY DOBSON Author
imagination and science to weave a story that challenges prevailing thought on the evolution of human society throughout the ages. Several real-life experiences were also included, one in which Jeff Dobson, Dobson's twin brother and the co-author of "Waters of Chaos," had to pass through 41 Egyptian military checkpoints in an unsuccessful attempt to reach a geographical site.
it better suited for a novel than for scientific publications.
"I wanted to bring out ideas in people that need to be discussed, and this book is a prompt for those ideas." said Dobson.
It's a story of mankind's evolution. "Waters of Chaos" is a science mystery that traverses the centuries in two parts, beginning more than 10,000 years ago with an ancient saga and ending in a modern quest. The book uses
Dobson is careful to clarify that much of the text is theory, not scientific fact, but prods us to see how changing sea levels have shaped history. For 100,000 years, the sea level as we know it today
Dobson analyzes the possibility that the rise and fall of sea levels could have had a large effect on
was consistently 25 meters lower, leaving a considerable amount of landmass above water during that time. This coastal landmass, labeled Aquaterre by Dobson, is equivalent to the size of North America, and he poses the question, "What happened on that land during those years?"
mankind and its cultural development. Although agriculture didn't evolve until 16,000 years ago, or art until 37,000 years past, evolutionary theory estimates we've had the same physical brains for approximately 100,000 years. "Why did we possess all of that potential brain space, unused yet capable of so much, if there hadn't been something to cause it to develop?" This is another question Dobson asks, and he arranges his research on paper in a way that favors the development of well-placed questions.
Throughout history, human fate has been inexorably linked to water. Ancient lore from Greece to India speak of floods that would reshape the earth.
"It's not far fetched to ask if these 'waters of chaos' could be a historical analogy to rising sea levels," stated Dobson, who believes that questions like these enable us to dive into real history. "I'm cautious about saying what's fact, but regardless, we have to ask these questions in order to know."
Dobson will speak about his book at the Dole Institute of Politics today from 3 to 4:30 p.m. A book signing and sale will follow the presentation.
Edited by Alyssa Scott