Two U.S. senators fired off a letter to U.S. airlines
Tuesday asking them about efforts to ensure that their IT systems are reliable.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward Markey
(D-Mass) also asked the carriers about their policies for rebooking and
reimbursement in the event of a system outage.
Their inquiry comes in the wake of system outages at
Southwest and Delta over the past month that led to the combined cancellation
of about 4,400 flights.
“As operators in this critical transportation industry, it
is your responsibility to ensure that your IT systems are both reliant and
resilient,” wrote the senators, both of whom are frequent critics of the
airline industry, in a letter to Delta. “Now that four carriers control
approximately 85% of domestic capacity, all it takes is one airline to
experience an outage and thousands of passengers could be stranded, resulting
in missed business meetings, graduations, weddings, funerals and other prepaid
events.”
Blumenthal and Markey said they also sent a letter to
American, Southwest, United, JetBlue, Alaska, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant,
Hawaiian, Virgin America, Sun Country and Island Air Hawaii.
The senators posed 10 questions to the carriers, and asked
for a response by Sept. 16. Among other
inquiries, they asked airlines to explain what steps they are taking to
modernize their IT systems; what safeguards and backups they currently have in
place; and whether they provide compensation, free rebookings, rebookings on
other airlines and other measures in the event of cancellations.
The six-hour Aug. 8 Delta outage, which led to the
cancellation of more than 2,100 flights over four days, was triggered by the
failure of a power control module at the carrier’s Technology Command Center in
Atlanta.
The 12-hour Southwest shutdown on July 20, which led to the
cancellation of 2,300 flights over four days, was the result of the failure of
a router, as well as that router’s backup.
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Correction: Delta canceled 2,100 flight, not 3,100.