5 ms·

United Airlines grounds flights after system meltdown

62 points by rectang 1y ago

stego-tech 1y ago
The outages, attacks, and meltdowns will continue until business leadership stops thinking they know more about IT than their actual IT Engineers, and start supporting them accordingly.
- krunck 1y ago
  "United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby earned $33.9 million in 2024, compared to $18.6 million in 2023, and $9.8 million in 2022" https://onemileatatime.com/insights/highest-paid-airline-ceo/ https://onemileatatime.com/insights/highest-paid-airline-ceo... He must know something, right? And it seems he knows more and more as the years go by.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    Nearly doubling the CEO's salary annually seems like there would be enough money to increase the budget of whatever department/team needing to update the company's software while still increasing the CEO's salary by slightly less.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      I think it is the opposite. If you want to double the pay of your CEO every year then you're going to have to find that money somewhere, so it reduces the money available for other things. 'Slightly less' was never an option. That's why employees are often expected to work unpaid overtime and yet management gets ridiculous bonuses. And if it all goes bust: the taxpayer will make up the difference. These are all asymmetrical bets, CEOs pocket the gains and society ends up with the losses.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        Yes, that's the cynical way of looking at it. I'm looking at it from another perspective saying it's even worse/more offensive as they could have given the software team a $1million increase, while still giving the CEO a nearly doubled salary. There's nearly double then slightly less nearly double? No. It's just nearly doubled no matter what at those rates.
        jacquesm 1y ago
        Yes, that 'nearly' bit is the bit that matters. If 16M becomes 15M that is terrible for the CEO, better save some more on software (say another $10M) and pocket that extra million bonus based on higher profits for the shareholders. Because that's how it usually works.
        dylan604 1y ago
        Again, you're just pointing out what happens. I'm pointing out a reasonable alternative that gets both points achieved. If you're telling me that a CEO that is currently making $15 million but just won't be able to make it on $29 million instead of $30 million is just going to get no sympathy from me. None. At. All. The fact that you are on here just trying to use current logic on why the alternative I've proposed is the better solution is just preposterous and puts you in the part of the problem camp.
      - jonhohle 1y ago
        Not shockingly schools do the same thing. I had to buy a copy of Lord of the Flies for my high schooler’s English class, but the Super Intendant, who didn’t meet his performance goals, received a bonus that could have covered a good portion the English curriculum materials.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    He knows how to save on software development.
- rscho 1y ago
  Beatings will continue until morale improves.
- aaronax 1y ago
  I don't know, everywhere I look I see IT staff who don't care that much and can't problem solve. One possibility is that the IT leadership is herding cats very effectively and that things could be much much worse.
  - stego-tech 1y ago
    Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked in plenty of organizations where politics takes preference over outcomes, and every middle manager and senior leader wants their pound of flesh before allowing the objectively right thing to happen. These people then promote each other into higher tiers, because modern shareholders couldn’t care less about business effectiveness when share buybacks will juice their earnings - and the C-Suite’s. It’s a perverted reward hack by leadership, and nobody - governments, shareholders, boardrooms, regulators, etc - seems to give a shit.
goalieca 1y ago
> “This is exactly what happens when billion-dollar companies refuse to modernize,” one aviation analyst tweeted. “You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” While i sympathize, the world does rely on high quality 30+ year old software. I think it's time, as an industry, to stop seeing software as disposable and start designing for longevity.
- troyvit 1y ago
  Also I would totally trust a 1995 Toyota to drive cross-country.
  - mxuribe 1y ago
    Not only do i agree with you...i betcha that if/when the circa 1995 Toyota needs fixing, it would likely be easier and lower cost for someone to fix. ;-) EDIT: My comment was specific to the 1995 toyota being a far simpler vehicle than current models, hence likely to be easier to fix....but, of course, the flipside is that potentially the older the vehicle, the likely less availability of certain parts.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      I could fix pretty much any problem in that 1995 Toyota with tools that I have in my workshop. Unlike my 2009 car which requires a computer interface to do basic diagnostics and needs to be reprogrammed after many repairs. Let alone a 2020+ car (I've never had anything that new) that probably come with the hood welded closed.
      - mxuribe 1y ago
        Sadly, you're 100% correct!
  - jcgrillo 1y ago
    I'd drive my 1995 Toyota anywhere.
  - 1y ago
focusedone 1y ago
There's a lot I don't understand with this, but why pull back airplanes which had already left the gate?
- kqr 1y ago
  As long as the planes don't leave, the airline will know exactly where staff and equipment are: right where they were when the system broke. Once things get moving it becomes really complicated to figure out where everything is again. During previous similar outages it has taken days to track down staff and equipment once the systems are up again. During this time delays and cancellations continue. It's possible the system is much faster to bootstrap given correct locations of things from the start.
- lloeki 1y ago
  > The system manages flight information like crew scheduling, weight-and-balance calculations, and aircraft movement logs You wouldn't want to fly an airplane whose weight and balance has been miscalculated (or maybe properly calculated but can't vet if it has) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_0972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_0972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481
  - kqr 1y ago
    By the time they have pushed out the weights are already accounted for. It's part of the checklists that come before taxiing.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Even if the weight balance and loading are OK, it might be because other flights at the destination are being delayed at their gates and there won't be any gate for the aircraft when it arrives.
- qualeed 1y ago
  I'm guessing the system handled sensitive/critical flight information: >The system manages flight information like crew scheduling, weight-and-balance calculations, and aircraft movement logs.
cibyr 1y ago
Do any of the major airlines have a software stack that isn't a legacy nightmare?
- M95D 1y ago
  You would prefer a cutting-edge nightmare? It's no longer possible to not be a nightmare. Companies no longer employ devs for life to keep the system functional and up-to-date, and (most probably) no devs would stay in such a role for their entire career. When nobody knows how the system works, it can only be a nightmare: they keep it barely functional with marginal patches, accumulating debt until it finally crashes in such a way that it can't be fixed, then a new team comes in, designs and builds a new system, patches some major flaws, and then leave, and the situation repeats for another 10 years.
readthenotes1 1y ago
"You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Just wait till I find out how old this SABRE is! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(travel_reservation_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(travel_reservation_sy...
- rjsw 1y ago
  I think that SABRE has been rewritten at least twice, though the last time could have been over 30 years ago. I interviewed to work on the C version about 35 years ago.
  - slightwinder 1y ago
    There is the design of the system, and there is the implementation of that system. And the design of those systems are moving really, really slow in the aviation-world. Usually, any enhancement is done by attaching some auxiliary-system, or putting a layer on top, leading to layers of layers on top of layers, with the ugly core buried somewhere below. And even if you would rewrite those layers, or even the core itself in something modern, you still would be forced to handle the fundamental constraints of the whole design.
tantalor 1y ago
This is not a reliable source. Reeks of AI-generated text and fake author bios. There are plenty of real sources for this story: https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/united-airlines-halts-flight-departures-after-tech-problem-b37ad11d https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/united-airlines-halts-... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/united-airlines-system-outage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/united-airlines-... https://www.reuters.com/world/us/united-airlines-flights-resume-after-it-resolves-technology-glitch-2025-08-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/united-airlines-flights-res...
- hi41 1y ago
  Wow. I couldn’t tell. How did you find out that it may be AI generated.
  - tantalor 1y ago
    1. Poor writing quality 2. Didn't exist before 2023 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/allchronology.com https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/allchronology.co...) 3. Faces on https://allchronology.com/about/ https://allchronology.com/about/ look like they were taken from https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
    - smarx007 1y ago
      Not only the faces look like AI, their URLs look the part: https://i0.wp.com/allchronology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/100k-ai-faces-3-1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/allchronology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/... 100k-ai-faces-3-1.jpg :)
      - tantalor 1y ago
        Nice catch!!
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      The bios does not name the other "renowned" maganizes either they supposedly worked at.
dylan604 1y ago
"You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Why would a 30-year-old car be flying a plane? That makes no sense.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  Sounds like they got Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker to write this article
  - dylan604 1y ago
    I would love to see a ZAZ take on Tesla's AutoPilot.
citrin_ru 1y ago
New software system can be even less reliable. The old/new distinction is not really important, what important is if reliability is a priority whoever owns the system. If there is a sustained effort to find and fix bug and other issues.
- slightwinder 1y ago
  Usually, for the old/new distinction the architecture and used algorithm are relevant. Old software is often designed for less workload and lower complexity, and can easier get stuck in certain situations for which it wasn't designed. For example, because of a holiday, the system would be confronted with more customers than it can handle, and any little change (like a failing plane or changing flight-staff) could lead to a crash of the system. IIRC this was a problem they had some years ago.
- RaftPeople 1y ago
  > The old/new distinction is not really important, what important is if reliability Agreed. Frequently the actual issue related to these big system outages is cost-cutting/outsourcing/lack of maintenance.
dreamcompiler 1y ago
In the old days, airlines and power grids were incentivized by regulations to spend money to build extra capacity into their systems to increase reliability in times of crisis. Now they're all deregulated and they are highly incentivized by their shareholders not to overbuild capacity because it costs money and provides zero return on investment. The upshot is that these industries operate with zero excess capacity. They work fine when everything goes as planned, but the minute something breaks or a storm happens, everything cascades into a steaming pile of shit. In the case of the airlines, competitive market forces previously provided some incentive to invest in reliability but so many airline mergers have been allowed to happen that there's effectively no airline competition in the US any more.
- mxuribe 1y ago
  I think i once heard this referred to as *delicapitalism* (or maybe it was deli-capitalism)...which, if recall correctly, means capitalist incentives, behaviors/actions that over time result in a more delicate world/ecosystem, etc. Something like that i think.
  - orbital-decay 1y ago
    "Capitalism" seems to be like "punk", a word one could slap onto anything. Fragility is just the natural result of any optimization.
- tempodox 1y ago
  > incentivized by their shareholders Those shareholders are their actual customers. Air traffic is just an annoying necessity.
lemonberry 1y ago
Plenty of 30-year old cars can and do drive across the country. The analogy makes me wonder: in 30 years will 30-year-old cars be able to drive across the country? I suspect 60-year-old cars will still be able to make that trip, but will the current crop of cars with all of the electronics and onboard computers? I suspect they won't, but that's an opinion formed by bias and not facts.
xyst 1y ago
This country bailed out this industry multiple times in the past 20-25 years. Yet they continue to ignore investment in their own operations, and instead use it towards executive bonuses and stock buybacks. Anybody else tired of this broken hypercapitalistic system that only serves to benefit the few? Enshittification is a symptom of a much more disgusting disease.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
fluidcruft 1y ago
Is United the one suing Microsoft and everyone and pointing fingers everywhere else about how CrowdStrike broke them worse than the other airlines last year?
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  Delta was the one that was pointing the finger at MS.
rbanffy 1y ago
> “You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Because software doesn't show wear. On the contrary - a system that's been running stable for 30 years probably has fewer bugs than one that's been running since last week. They are running old software on new computers.

62 points by rectang 1y ago

The outages, attacks, and meltdowns will continue until business leadership stops thinking they know more about IT than their actual IT Engineers, and start supporting them accordingly.

krunck 1y ago
"United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby earned $33.9 million in 2024, compared to $18.6 million in 2023, and $9.8 million in 2022" https://onemileatatime.com/insights/highest-paid-airline-ceo/ https://onemileatatime.com/insights/highest-paid-airline-ceo... He must know something, right? And it seems he knows more and more as the years go by.
- dylan604 1y ago
  Nearly doubling the CEO's salary annually seems like there would be enough money to increase the budget of whatever department/team needing to update the company's software while still increasing the CEO's salary by slightly less.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    I think it is the opposite. If you want to double the pay of your CEO every year then you're going to have to find that money somewhere, so it reduces the money available for other things. 'Slightly less' was never an option. That's why employees are often expected to work unpaid overtime and yet management gets ridiculous bonuses. And if it all goes bust: the taxpayer will make up the difference. These are all asymmetrical bets, CEOs pocket the gains and society ends up with the losses.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      Yes, that's the cynical way of looking at it. I'm looking at it from another perspective saying it's even worse/more offensive as they could have given the software team a $1million increase, while still giving the CEO a nearly doubled salary. There's nearly double then slightly less nearly double? No. It's just nearly doubled no matter what at those rates.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        Yes, that 'nearly' bit is the bit that matters. If 16M becomes 15M that is terrible for the CEO, better save some more on software (say another $10M) and pocket that extra million bonus based on higher profits for the shareholders. Because that's how it usually works.
        dylan604 1y ago
        Again, you're just pointing out what happens. I'm pointing out a reasonable alternative that gets both points achieved. If you're telling me that a CEO that is currently making $15 million but just won't be able to make it on $29 million instead of $30 million is just going to get no sympathy from me. None. At. All. The fact that you are on here just trying to use current logic on why the alternative I've proposed is the better solution is just preposterous and puts you in the part of the problem camp.
    - jonhohle 1y ago
      Not shockingly schools do the same thing. I had to buy a copy of Lord of the Flies for my high schooler’s English class, but the Super Intendant, who didn’t meet his performance goals, received a bonus that could have covered a good portion the English curriculum materials.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  He knows how to save on software development.
rscho 1y ago
Beatings will continue until morale improves.
aaronax 1y ago
I don't know, everywhere I look I see IT staff who don't care that much and can't problem solve. One possibility is that the IT leadership is herding cats very effectively and that things could be much much worse.
- stego-tech 1y ago
  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked in plenty of organizations where politics takes preference over outcomes, and every middle manager and senior leader wants their pound of flesh before allowing the objectively right thing to happen. These people then promote each other into higher tiers, because modern shareholders couldn’t care less about business effectiveness when share buybacks will juice their earnings - and the C-Suite’s. It’s a perverted reward hack by leadership, and nobody - governments, shareholders, boardrooms, regulators, etc - seems to give a shit.

goalieca 1y ago

> “This is exactly what happens when billion-dollar companies refuse to modernize,” one aviation analyst tweeted. “You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” While i sympathize, the world does rely on high quality 30+ year old software. I think it's time, as an industry, to stop seeing software as disposable and start designing for longevity.

troyvit 1y ago
Also I would totally trust a 1995 Toyota to drive cross-country.
- mxuribe 1y ago
  Not only do i agree with you...i betcha that if/when the circa 1995 Toyota needs fixing, it would likely be easier and lower cost for someone to fix. ;-) EDIT: My comment was specific to the 1995 toyota being a far simpler vehicle than current models, hence likely to be easier to fix....but, of course, the flipside is that potentially the older the vehicle, the likely less availability of certain parts.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    I could fix pretty much any problem in that 1995 Toyota with tools that I have in my workshop. Unlike my 2009 car which requires a computer interface to do basic diagnostics and needs to be reprogrammed after many repairs. Let alone a 2020+ car (I've never had anything that new) that probably come with the hood welded closed.
    - mxuribe 1y ago
      Sadly, you're 100% correct!
- jcgrillo 1y ago
  I'd drive my 1995 Toyota anywhere.
- 1y ago

focusedone 1y ago

There's a lot I don't understand with this, but why pull back airplanes which had already left the gate?

kqr 1y ago
As long as the planes don't leave, the airline will know exactly where staff and equipment are: right where they were when the system broke. Once things get moving it becomes really complicated to figure out where everything is again. During previous similar outages it has taken days to track down staff and equipment once the systems are up again. During this time delays and cancellations continue. It's possible the system is much faster to bootstrap given correct locations of things from the start.
lloeki 1y ago
> The system manages flight information like crew scheduling, weight-and-balance calculations, and aircraft movement logs You wouldn't want to fly an airplane whose weight and balance has been miscalculated (or maybe properly calculated but can't vet if it has) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_0972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_0972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481
- kqr 1y ago
  By the time they have pushed out the weights are already accounted for. It's part of the checklists that come before taxiing.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Even if the weight balance and loading are OK, it might be because other flights at the destination are being delayed at their gates and there won't be any gate for the aircraft when it arrives.
qualeed 1y ago
I'm guessing the system handled sensitive/critical flight information: >The system manages flight information like crew scheduling, weight-and-balance calculations, and aircraft movement logs.

cibyr 1y ago

Do any of the major airlines have a software stack that isn't a legacy nightmare?

M95D 1y ago
You would prefer a cutting-edge nightmare? It's no longer possible to not be a nightmare. Companies no longer employ devs for life to keep the system functional and up-to-date, and (most probably) no devs would stay in such a role for their entire career. When nobody knows how the system works, it can only be a nightmare: they keep it barely functional with marginal patches, accumulating debt until it finally crashes in such a way that it can't be fixed, then a new team comes in, designs and builds a new system, patches some major flaws, and then leave, and the situation repeats for another 10 years.

readthenotes1 1y ago

"You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Just wait till I find out how old this SABRE is! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(travel_reservation_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(travel_reservation_sy...

rjsw 1y ago
I think that SABRE has been rewritten at least twice, though the last time could have been over 30 years ago. I interviewed to work on the C version about 35 years ago.
- slightwinder 1y ago
  There is the design of the system, and there is the implementation of that system. And the design of those systems are moving really, really slow in the aviation-world. Usually, any enhancement is done by attaching some auxiliary-system, or putting a layer on top, leading to layers of layers on top of layers, with the ugly core buried somewhere below. And even if you would rewrite those layers, or even the core itself in something modern, you still would be forced to handle the fundamental constraints of the whole design.

tantalor 1y ago

This is not a reliable source. Reeks of AI-generated text and fake author bios. There are plenty of real sources for this story: https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/united-airlines-halts-flight-departures-after-tech-problem-b37ad11d https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/united-airlines-halts-... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/united-airlines-system-outage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/business/united-airlines-... https://www.reuters.com/world/us/united-airlines-flights-resume-after-it-resolves-technology-glitch-2025-08-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/united-airlines-flights-res...

hi41 1y ago
Wow. I couldn’t tell. How did you find out that it may be AI generated.
- tantalor 1y ago
  1. Poor writing quality 2. Didn't exist before 2023 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/allchronology.com https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/allchronology.co...) 3. Faces on https://allchronology.com/about/ https://allchronology.com/about/ look like they were taken from https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
  - smarx007 1y ago
    Not only the faces look like AI, their URLs look the part: https://i0.wp.com/allchronology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/100k-ai-faces-3-1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/allchronology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/... 100k-ai-faces-3-1.jpg :)
    - tantalor 1y ago
      Nice catch!!
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    The bios does not name the other "renowned" maganizes either they supposedly worked at.

dylan604 1y ago

"You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Why would a 30-year-old car be flying a plane? That makes no sense.

selimthegrim 1y ago
Sounds like they got Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker to write this article
- dylan604 1y ago
  I would love to see a ZAZ take on Tesla's AutoPilot.

citrin_ru 1y ago

New software system can be even less reliable. The old/new distinction is not really important, what important is if reliability is a priority whoever owns the system. If there is a sustained effort to find and fix bug and other issues.

slightwinder 1y ago
Usually, for the old/new distinction the architecture and used algorithm are relevant. Old software is often designed for less workload and lower complexity, and can easier get stuck in certain situations for which it wasn't designed. For example, because of a holiday, the system would be confronted with more customers than it can handle, and any little change (like a failing plane or changing flight-staff) could lead to a crash of the system. IIRC this was a problem they had some years ago.
RaftPeople 1y ago
> The old/new distinction is not really important, what important is if reliability Agreed. Frequently the actual issue related to these big system outages is cost-cutting/outsourcing/lack of maintenance.

dreamcompiler 1y ago

In the old days, airlines and power grids were incentivized by regulations to spend money to build extra capacity into their systems to increase reliability in times of crisis. Now they're all deregulated and they are highly incentivized by their shareholders not to overbuild capacity because it costs money and provides zero return on investment. The upshot is that these industries operate with zero excess capacity. They work fine when everything goes as planned, but the minute something breaks or a storm happens, everything cascades into a steaming pile of shit. In the case of the airlines, competitive market forces previously provided some incentive to invest in reliability but so many airline mergers have been allowed to happen that there's effectively no airline competition in the US any more.

mxuribe 1y ago
I think i once heard this referred to as *delicapitalism* (or maybe it was deli-capitalism)...which, if recall correctly, means capitalist incentives, behaviors/actions that over time result in a more delicate world/ecosystem, etc. Something like that i think.
- orbital-decay 1y ago
  "Capitalism" seems to be like "punk", a word one could slap onto anything. Fragility is just the natural result of any optimization.
tempodox 1y ago
> incentivized by their shareholders Those shareholders are their actual customers. Air traffic is just an annoying necessity.

lemonberry 1y ago

Plenty of 30-year old cars can and do drive across the country. The analogy makes me wonder: in 30 years will 30-year-old cars be able to drive across the country? I suspect 60-year-old cars will still be able to make that trip, but will the current crop of cars with all of the electronics and onboard computers? I suspect they won't, but that's an opinion formed by bias and not facts.

xyst 1y ago

This country bailed out this industry multiple times in the past 20-25 years. Yet they continue to ignore investment in their own operations, and instead use it towards executive bonuses and stock buybacks. Anybody else tired of this broken hypercapitalistic system that only serves to benefit the few? Enshittification is a symptom of a much more disgusting disease.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

fluidcruft 1y ago

Is United the one suing Microsoft and everyone and pointing fingers everywhere else about how CrowdStrike broke them worse than the other airlines last year?

Jtsummers 1y ago
Delta was the one that was pointing the finger at MS.

rbanffy 1y ago

> “You wouldn’t trust a 30-year-old car to drive cross-country. Why are we trusting it to fly planes?” Because software doesn't show wear. On the contrary - a system that's been running stable for 30 years probably has fewer bugs than one that's been running since last week. They are running old software on new computers.