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Whiteboards used after Gatwick flight information screens fail
- retSava 8y agoMy first thought was that the whiteboards themselves failed, that this was some kind of The Onion article, but it isn't. It's simply that the backup plan to the failing digital boards, are plain whiteboards.
- ams6110 8y agoSame. That is a really poorly worded headline.
- tantalor 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
- dmurray 8y agoThis is the opposite of a garden path sentence: the first verb really is part of the sentence's main clause - i.e. the meaning of the sentence is "Whiteboards [are] used..." instead of "Whiteboards...fail".
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- dang 8y agoA preposition swap (s/as/after/) should do the trick.
- PacifyFish 8y agoWhiteboard interviews vindicated. /s
- bitwize 8y agoYes, even as ops grind to a dead halt, the company can still screen candidates looking for reasons/excuses not to hire them.
- planetjones 8y agoI struggle a little to see how there is a single point of failure here (a fibre optic cable). I’d have thought the screens were powered by a device plugged into a LAN. Would be interested if anyone knows the architecture of such screens and why there is such a single point of failure in the whole airport.
- Someone1234 8y agoThese screens build information from multiple sources inc. airlines, ground control, and in some cases airport management. They're typically run off-site at a data center since that provides high resiliency and some data is sourced from outside the airport anyway. If the airport has a dedicated fiber channel between their data center and airport itself and it was damaged, this could be the result. The question I'd ask is why they have no fallback strategies (e.g. cellular, VPN over a less secure internet channel, etc). This might be an area where they can explore graceful degradation, meaning that gate information would continue to display (from airport ground control), but some flight times might be missing.
- MBCook 8y agoIt seems so strange that they wouldn’t have a redundant link (like the various options you suggested) or at least fall back to easily available public data (flight information sites) that would at least help some.
- gaius 8y agoPerhaps they could have gone with a connectivity vendor with an extensive 4G network for backup if the (inexplicably) non-redundant fixed line was cut.
- Someone1234 8y agoThey're with Vodafone who has that.
- nimbius 8y agoreminds me of the waiting room at the auto repair shop I work at. As an engine mechanic, its vital to make sure customers have access to up-to-the-minute stats on their minivan (or so im told by my boss.) Eventually someone knocked a stepladder into the screen and broke it, so we switched to whiteboard and engine techs had to scribble in status updates in front of customers like some sort of weird lecture. Techs would mark down "NG" for no go, OK for ok, and HOLD...these all make sense to us, but not to customers. Even worse, once an hour or two a tired tech would shuffle into the waiting room study the board for a minute, and slowly cross out the name of a person. The whiteboard worked, but that day our shop was indistinguishable from a mafia den.
- olafure 8y agoWhiteboards are remarkable.
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- dfsegoat 8y agoGreat example of "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome." in a bad situation - whether they had SOPs for this situation or not.
- illwrks 8y agoHave people forgotten they can use mobile apps?
- bhandziuk 8y agoNot everyone has a phone. Not everyone has that app (whatever it is... the airport, the airline, the travel agency), using an app is always harder than looking at the real-time displays especially if your hands are full of luggage.
- tjohns 8y agoAnd on top of that, not everyone's phone will be charged, and not everyone will have cell service (if traveling internationally). The mobile apps are great when they work, but still need to be considered a convenience rather than a primary information source.
- jaclaz 8y ago>Not everyone has a phone. Corollary: A few do have a phone, but it is not a smartphone.
- tedmiston 8y agoThe airport's whiteboard backup plan is interesting but my first thought was also that all of this info is available online or through the airline apps. In my experience, changes often show up in Kayak ahead of the airport dashboards. I check apps or notifications before the official dashboards now.
- Hates_ 8y agoAccording to the Times article flight information was not available online either.
- the_mitsuhiko 8y agoIf only London airports could print the gates on the tickets. But I guess they would miss out on that sweet revenue from consumption.
- dhimes 8y agoI think gates change when planes need to be re-routed.
- the_mitsuhiko 8y agoThat’s the exception and not the rule and when it changes it’s typically just around the corner and you can do show infos on the old gate.
- craftyguy 8y agoI've found that when the gate is printed on the ticket, it is rarely correct. Even more so for connecting flights. So in the end, I still have to look at screens until I am actually at the gate.
- dhimes 8y agoI've found this too. The terminal usually stays the same because they are contracted to specific airlines, but the gate is fluid. For example, my wife is flying home today and her arrival gate was only announced a couple of hours ago (she's taking off just about now).
- hermitdev 8y agoI think it depends on the airport & airline. Personally, in the US, I've had flights change terminals, not just gates. Terminal changes can be at least 20 mins on foot, even if you're fit and healthy.
- dhimes 8y agoTotally agree. In my experience, however, terminal changes occasionally happen but are unusual. Then, of course, there are places like Logan (BOS) where Terminal B has some sort of remote outpost- so even staying in the same terminal but changing gates can be a long haul to the connector because some of the gates are so far away http://boston-bos.worldairportguides.com/terminal-maps.php http://boston-bos.worldairportguides.com/terminal-maps.php
- BillinghamJ 8y agoSeems like a pretty big success to me. They had a contingency plan and it was implemented successfully. No cancelled flights and minimal delays - good job.
- Reason077 8y agoPresumably it helps that many (most?) travellers will be using the airline's apps these days, which provide info such as boarding times and gate updates.
- kalleboo 8y agoIn my experience, all the apps (airport, airline, travel apps, even Apple Wallet e-tickets) all have unreliable or heavily delayed gate information. Does anyone really rely on them?
- abawany 8y agoGoing to the airline's site and looking up the flight status has often resulted in a better update on delays, gate changes, and etc. for me than even the airport's status displays.
- Reason077 8y agoInfo viewed directly in the Apple Wallet screen is delayed, for sure. That applies to all apps - the tickets/"cards" don't seem to refresh that often. But what you see inside the app should generally be up to date, although I guess not all apps are equal. The US airline's apps tend to be very good, sending you real time notifications of gate changes and flight delays. On Delta, the app even took me directly to a rebooking function when it notified me of a flight delay during a layover in ATL. Very good UX.
- monksy 8y agoDepends on the airline. United's app is terrible about updating on gate changes. Jetblue is incredibly sensitive about any change and will do a push notification for it. (Your flight landed 2 minutes late, etc)
- researcher_ 8y agoTalk about mvp :)
- safgasCVS 8y agoSo... massive IT failure and everything carried on working because staff was really competent? Damn the Brits are hung up on complaining
- Farstrider 8y agoSimplest solution to the problem, love it
- huangc10 8y agoYeh, whiteboard works but another more technical solution could be roll out a TV stand and hook up the TV to a laptop via HDMI and update schedule live through a shared doc (Google docs?). I mean, whatever works right...
- kingbirdy 8y agoThat requires them to have a surplus of portable TVs and laptops, which I don't see why they'd have (and would be much more expensive to buy as backup than the white boards)
- mikepurvis 8y agoAlso, the full-manual solution of having whiteboards on standby covers a much broader spectrum of failures.
- londons_explore 8y agoAs well as a whiteboard on standby, you also need 1 person per whiteboard to keep them updated. In an airport as big as gatwick, you probably can't get away with anything less than ~10 whiteboards (5 per terminal). Which means 10 people. Not many companies have 10 spare people on site ready to act as emergency whiteboardmen.
- ryandrake 8y agoCan’t one person update multiple whiteboards?
- mikepurvis 8y agoThere are 21000 people employed at Gatwick airport. There are going to be a lot more than ten people on standby at any given time, waiting to take on exactly the kinds of surprise situations which are business as usual in a busy airport.
- lotu 8y ago
- awiesenhofer 8y agoAfter Deutsche Bahn was hit by wannacry Last year they too uses blackbords and announcers like in the old days. It was beautiful to watch. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/13/cyber-attack-hits-german-train-stations-hackers-target-deutsche/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/13/cyber-attack-hit...
- freyr 8y agoIf I worked at Gatwick Airport, all my practice at whiteboards would finally be relevant to my job.
- duxup 8y agoDistantly related but when I was in Europe decades ago I was at a train station where they had a massive split-flap display ( I want to say at a couple places ). I loved watching it update. Aesthetically it was so much better than big super bright screens.
- cnorthwood 8y agoWhat you're looking for is called a Solari Board, there's some mesmerising videos of them around, and a few places still have them!
- duxup 8y agoI need one for my house .... maybe put the weather on it and have a button to cycle it.
- icebraining 8y agoYou're in luck! https://hackaday.com/2018/08/18/custom-split-flap-display-is-a-unique-way-to-show-the-weather/ https://hackaday.com/2018/08/18/custom-split-flap-display-is...
- Reason077 8y agoThe main international terminal at Auckland airport still had a huge Solari board until just a few years ago (~2012). Sadly, they had to go digital in the end due to spare parts becoming difficult to source. According to Wikipedia, there are still some airports (eg Frankfurt) and many rail stations that still have them in active service.
- khuey 8y agoThe San Francisco Ferry Building has one that's in use today.
- jjjensen90 8y agoThere's a company in the US that will make you one/rent you one, you can even control it via API. They sound really cool too.. I think I need to expense one for my office! https://www.oatfoundry.com/split-flap/ https://www.oatfoundry.com/split-flap/
- octosphere 8y agoImagine having to update the whiteboard in real time though? Must be a right PITA, unless there is minimal changes going on with the flights (lack of delays or gate changes).
- kovek 8y agoWent volunteering at a speed skating event once. One task I was asked to help with was mark the order of the skaters at the end of the race. I asked why that is and they explained that if all systems fail (1. Device on the skater's ankle, 2. cameras recording the race), then this ordering we note is what they will fall back on. It seems like a lot of work people do is individual and idle when other systems take responsibility of many issues in a process. I'm glad that people worked closer together as a result of this failure! I'm glad people worked closer together here, not that there was a failure!
- barbegal 8y agoThis was a failure of a fibre connection to the internet and a cloud service. Oddly enough, Gatwick's CIO was last week [1] telling journalists that he didn't like to rely on the cloud: "The airport has used multi-tenanted public cloud in the past, but for that to work perfectly you need your telecom providers to work well, the path across internet to work, the hosting firm's telecoms to work, and their data centre support and monitoring not to drop. We have had examples where even in the public cloud using dedicated slices, you can suffer from noisy neighbours, and we just can't have that. Our operations are too important to us, so we need to keep it close. We use cloud for resilience, and we're very pro-cloud, but not for core services." So it seems odd that departure boards were being fed from a cloud service. Maybe they hadn't been considered as a core service until now. On the bright side at least the failure was limited to just the boards. The website, apps and check in desks all had the correct information. [1] https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3034002/too-many-companies-are-cloud-junkies-says-gatwick-airport-cio https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3034002/too-many-compan...
- cyberferret 8y agoHmmm... The flight boards for most of the airports around me here in Australia are available via the internet, on a public URL. [0] Wonder why someone didn't just prop up PC's with large monitors or projectors around the airport, hooked into the WiFi to broadcast this info? [0] - https://www.darwinairport.com.au/departures https://www.darwinairport.com.au/departures