I was browsing in search of the latest updates on the technical glitch that hit the country on New Year’s Day when I came across several stories regarding similar incidents that have occurred in more progressive countries with bigger and high-tech airports.
Notably, in those countries, politicians did not jump into the issue and just let the designated aviation authorities handle the problem. The affected passengers, though pissed, understood that such things happen even in the face of highly-modern technology.
On January 2 or a day after the said fiasco at our airports, a ‘national ground stop’ was issued by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) on all aircraft going to and from any airport in Florida, owing to an ‘equipment issue.’ Their air traffic control centers use a computer system called, “En Route Automation Modernization” (ERAM) to manage airspace and all planes using it.
The FAA said the problem stemmed from the ERAM issue and affected flights to six major airports in the southern half of Florida. Flights were suspended pending the resolution of the said problem.
The same thing happened in Switzerland in June 2022, when its air navigation system suffered a ‘tech glitch’ or “major computer failure,” also resulting in the suspension of the use of Swiss airspace.
Its air navigation service provider Skyguide said there had been an “unknown tech malfunction” that necessitated the grounding of outbound flights and the rerouting of arrivals in Geneva airport in Switzerland and even the cancellation of flights.
Note that even if the issue had been resolved and the Swiss airspace had been reopened to air traffic while operations at their national airports in Geneva and Zurich have resumed, the operations did not go 100 percent at once. It began with 50 percent capacity and inched toward 75 percent prior to full operations.
While the airspace was closed to air traffic, international flights to Switzerland had to be rerouted to German cities like Frankfurt and Munich and even to Milan. All these also created problems for affected air passengers. Skyguide later said the problem was caused by a ‘hardware glitch’ and ruled out ‘hacking’.
In the Florida air traffic computer issue, Miami International Airport (MIA) officials said there had been a ‘nationwide ground stop to and from Florida due to a radar link outage’. Nearly 270 flight delays and 19 flight cancellations were reported at the MIA on Monday while the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport recorded 290 delays and 33 flight cancellations.
Before that, in February also last year, the airport ground services operator Swissport was also hit by a ransomware attack that affected Zurich Airport services. Swissport is in charge of the bulk of airport operations that include baggage handling, aircraft fueling, and security and check-in gates and the problem also caused flight delays.
By the way, a technical glitch also led to several Qantas flight delays across Australia and New Zealand in August 2022. Both international and domestic flights from Melbourne and Sydney airports were affected by the technical issue.
In March 2022, British Airways also faced delays as an IT glitch caused serious problems with the airline’s check-in systems around the world. Reportedly, the system was hit at that time by five serious malfunctions in just three months, causing huge delays to thousands of passengers around the globe.
Here in our dear country, the over-the-top reactions led many to believe that the said computer glitch that occurred on January 1 was a ‘one-of-a-kind’ incident that we experienced because we are a third-world country (or a developing country) with less sophisticated equipment and inefficient key people.
I almost fell for it too, until I did some research and found out that the same problems also hit first-world countries in the past and even these days. The marked difference though is that their politicians do not ride on the issue and there are no immediate demands for resignations.
I believe we should even be thankful that despite the problem taking place on a New Year’s Day, our concerned officials were ‘all hands on deck’ to attend to it.
Kudos to Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista, NAIA general manager Cesar Chiong and even Captain Manuel Antonio Tamayo, Director General ng Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), who all personally saw to it that the functions of their respective offices were fully discharged.
The fact that the same thing happened in places like Florida and Switzerland and to airlines like Qantas and British Airways, goes to show that no country can ever be ready for a problem like a technical glitch.
If the same kind of issue can occur in and affect bigger, more progressive countries with more high-tech airports and aviation equipment, there is no reason why we should expect our system to be impervious to it.
***
DIRECT HIT entertains comments, suggestions or complaints. Please have them emailed to [email protected] or text 0917-3132168.
Para sa reaksyon o komento at tanong mag-email sa [email protected]
