Looks like PSA had some sort of outage forcing significant cancellations. Oddly AA isn't disclosing what the outage is/was.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/latest ... 28769.html

PSA and AA IT are separate entities.

That's one helluva "technical issue" that not only grounds all of PSA flights but that also results in AA cancelling all of theirs. i get that PSA feeds mainline AA a lot of traffic, but I don't understand AA canceling all their flights. AA can't even operate ANY flights??? Very odd.

FlyingJhawk wrote:

That's one helluva "technical issue" that not only grounds all of PSA flights but that also results in AA cancelling all of theirs. i get that PSA feeds mainline AA a lot of traffic, but I don't understand AA canceling all their flights. AA can't even operate ANY flights??? Very odd.

I am confused where in the article did you read that? Nowhere did it say AA cancelled all of their flights. This article speaks of PSA flights solely.

The rest of AA is operating fine. It's just PSA.
Being a Friday in June, there is probably very little slack in the rest of the system to accommodate all of these stranded passengers. High load factors are great for airlines, until something happens.

Must have been something with their flight dispatching and/or crew tracking software. If they can’t move any airplanes, it must mean they can’t dispatch them or crews can’t be tracked. Definitely not a great way to start off the weekend.

I hate when that happens.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today

None of the cancellations appear on the Flight Aware statistics, even though there have been hundreds of them. Do they not appear because they’re a relatively small carrier?

FlyingJhawk wrote:

That's one helluva "technical issue" that not only grounds all of PSA flights but that also results in AA cancelling all of theirs. i get that PSA feeds mainline AA a lot of traffic, but I don't understand AA canceling all their flights. AA can't even operate ANY flights??? Very odd.

Mainline flights ops were not affected by this.

THe news is pounding AA over the issue; 675 flights cancelled over two days. Long stories on CNN and FOX in the last two hours.

chepos wrote:

FlyingJhawk wrote:

That's one helluva "technical issue" that not only grounds all of PSA flights but that also results in AA cancelling all of theirs. i get that PSA feeds mainline AA a lot of traffic, but I don't understand AA canceling all their flights. AA can't even operate ANY flights??? Very odd.

Mainline flights ops were not affected by this.

It may not affect mainline operations but situations like this affect the mainline customer and that should be of great concern. Trying to fit these people that are not getting to where they want to go is a AA issue whether it’s AA eagle or AA. It’s the same with all the carriers. Express products are all mainline in the eyes of the consumer.

mcdu wrote:

chepos wrote:

FlyingJhawk wrote:

That's one helluva "technical issue" that not only grounds all of PSA flights but that also results in AA cancelling all of theirs. i get that PSA feeds mainline AA a lot of traffic, but I don't understand AA canceling all their flights. AA can't even operate ANY flights??? Very odd.

Mainline flights ops were not affected by this.

It may not affect mainline operations but situations like this affect the mainline customer and that should be of great concern. Trying to fit these people that are not getting to where they want to go is a AA issue whether it’s AA eagle or AA. It’s the same with all the carriers. Express products are all mainline in the eyes of the consumer.

When and were did you see me debating that???? Someone mentioned all AA flights had been cancelled, I was clarifying that mainline ops did not get affected. This is a huge service disruption, nobody is minimizing that.

FlyingSicilian wrote:

THe news is pounding AA over the issue; 675 flights cancelled over two days. Long stories on CNN and FOX in the last two hours.

And they should be pounded. Certainly you can go into more detail than a "technical issue". If i remember correctly DL was very upfront with their customer when things went down in ATL. No reason AA shouldn't do the same.

The pax connecting to mainline flights (and v.v.) are certainly affected. AA should be accepting the blame for this. Lots of people will not make it to their destinations tpday. In the end, AA gets the blame, not PSA.

It appears PSA is having ANOTHER issues with their computer system..

flyguy84 wrote:

It appears PSA is having ANOTHER issues with their computer system..

As long as it doesn’t affect mainline then everyone is happy....

That is terrible if PSA is having more issues. The Friday and Sunday of a weekend is terrible for the customers. High LF and limited rebooking opportunities will cascade into the week ahead if this outage is prolonged.

mcdu wrote:

flyguy84 wrote:

It appears PSA is having ANOTHER issues with their computer system..

As long as it doesn’t affect mainline then everyone is happy....

That is terrible if PSA is having more issues. The Friday and Sunday of a weekend is terrible for the customers. High LF and limited rebooking opportunities will cascade into the week ahead if this outage is prolonged.

Yes all PSA flights into CLT are groundstopped due to a "Computer Issue" per the OIS. This is how it all started on Friday...

So far 182 cancellations today and counting according to FlightStats.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/lo ... SVuuGqlHJ/

Good job DUI Dougie. PSA is a WHOLLY OWNED subsidiary of AA, this falls on AA.

Had a Monday afternoon PSA flight to CLT get canceled. Seems this isn't close to being resolved.

Showing 404 total cancels today and already 256 for tomorrow.

AA, despite their attempt to claim that PSA is just a partner carrier, deserves to get dragged for the events of this weekend. PSA had better get their act together and do it fast.

AAG is going to have heads on platters in DAY tomorrow. This absolutely ludicrous that PSA doesn't have backup plans in place.

Was about to post this, then I realized this is a multi day issue now. It appears whatever caused this they simply can't recover from. I have clients stranded all over the country. Does anyone have any real data on what the heck went wrong and why its hush hush, and not fixed?

NWADTWE16 wrote:

Was about to post this, then I realized this is a multi day issue now. It appears whatever caused this they simply can't recover from. I have clients stranded all over the country. Does anyone have any real data on what the heck went wrong and why its hush hush, and not fixed?

I don’t believe it’s “hush hush” but I don’t think most people would understand the situation. Seems like they lost track of crews and airplanes. As in they don’t know where they are. So they’re having to piece it all back together and not doing a very good job.

This is what happens when you do everything on the cheap and hire a bunch of “yes men” who pretend everything is a-ok.

And no attempt by AA to help the travelers in communities getting hit over and over with PSA cancellations. A co-worker of mine has had both legs of his round trip cancelled. He was to be in a friend's wedding party but never made it. I guess if he did, he wasn't going to make it back to work tomorrow. I'l have to ask him if he still had to pay for his tux.

I suspect there are thousands of stories like this.

I remember Delta getting bludgeoned for going back to its agreement with AA in he last year. You’d think AA would now be Delta’s new best friend. Without that back in place, can you imagine the bigger chaos that would be for AA?

Hearing that all PSA flights for rest of night are cancelled

LotsaRunway wrote:

And no attempt by AA to help the travelers in communities getting hit over and over with PSA cancellations. A co-worker of mine has had both legs of his round trip cancelled. He was to be in a friend's wedding party but never made it. I guess if he did, he wasn't going to make it back to work tomorrow. I'l have to ask him if he still had to pay for his tux.

I suspect there are thousands of stories like this.

AA has been having Customer Relations reach out to all effected, but its not like its an instantaneous process, the departments simply aren't setup to handle back to back 400+ cancels from a single hub and get instantaneous responses to passengers. Plus, its PSA having the issue, its not like they can cancel markets being served by other carriers instead and claim that PSA is still at fault.

washingtonflyer wrote:

Hearing that all PSA flights for rest of night are cancelled

At this point, there isn't much left for the night so that wouldn't be all that surprising.

flyguy84 wrote:

NWADTWE16 wrote:

Was about to post this, then I realized this is a multi day issue now. It appears whatever caused this they simply can't recover from. I have clients stranded all over the country. Does anyone have any real data on what the heck went wrong and why its hush hush, and not fixed?

I don’t believe it’s “hush hush” but I don’t think most people would understand the situation. Seems like they lost track of crews and airplanes. As in they don’t know where they are. So they’re having to piece it all back together and not doing a very good job.

This is what happens when you do everything on the cheap and hire a bunch of “yes men” who pretend everything is a-ok.

Its not that its hush hush, its a massive IT issue that effects pretty much everything you need from a Dispatch perspective, its hard to quantify that. Simply stating "IT Issue" works a lot better than trying to quantify exactly what is and isn't working.

I was there, and what a mess. I was flying from Charlotte to another airport in North Carolina. I was rebooked onto 3 flights after my previous was canceled, all were canceled and finally the fourth went out. Almost no communication from AA or the airport to passengers. A huge percentage thought it was a TSA problem, misunderstanding when they were told “PSA.” Three days in, and 4/6 flights canceled today to the small airport near me (EWN, New Bern). Unless you dig in, there is no difference between AA and PSA. If you’re flying from New York to Savannah, the first half is AA and the second is PSA, but the customer sees no difference.

"We understand that these cancellations have been frustrating for our customers, and we are doing everything in our power to get things back to normal as quickly as possible," American Airlines said in a statement. "We are rebooking passengers and American's customer relations department will be reaching out to all affected customers."

I get it. Stuff happens. Weather, ATC, equipment problems, etc. But here we have a major company (AA) that's currently raking in record profits year after year with a CEO who proudly pronounced that the company would never lose money again, and that company has no backup plan to deal with this event. What was PSA's backup plan? Should/could AA send rescue flights? Don't the airlines have full duplicate file servers and other redundancies? Maybe a more manual way to operate a skeleton schedule? I don't know, but if I were earning $billions in profits, I would probably have more of a backup plan.

And saying we are rebooking passengers is a bunch of crap. Yes, the poor reservation people are working their tails off rebooking people to the next available seats, whenever that may be and are probably doing it over and over. But do the math. If you assume all passengers on a 90% full flight needs to be rebooked onto other scheduled flights that are also about 90% full, its going to take around 9 days to get them all out. Now cancel flights for 3-4 days in a row and you are talking weeks to a month to recover. Some travelers may luck out and get on DL or UA flights, but I doubt that AA will proactively offer that as an option. So the solution is that most stranded passengers won't go anywhere and will have lost days of time and other travel expenses even if AA refunds their fares.

This event is bad for airline workers and awful for affected travelers. I'm absolutely amazed that a redundancy was not planned that could have minimized this when the airline is practically printing money.

It appears it is cascading to other AA regional operators at CLT this Monday as PSA aircraft are probably clogging up gates. CLT flight to SBN on ExpressJet is 4 hrs late today.

ilovelamp wrote:

I remember Delta getting bludgeoned for going back to its agreement with AA in he last year. You’d think AA would now be Delta’s new best friend. Without that back in place, can you imagine the bigger chaos that would be for AA?

The problem is that DL's loads are generally pretty high, and they don't have a large presence at AA's East Coast hubs (other than DCA, and again, generally high loads there).

Elites are probably getting rebooked on other airlines, if possible, but the average person is likely stuck.

Guess they should change their call sign from Blue Streak to Brown Streak

colemathews22 wrote:

Guess they should change their call sign from Blue Streak to Brown Streak

I prefer to call them Lav Streak.

396 cancels and increasing.

Suggest title change to "PSA Airlines". It can be confused with Pisa Airport (PSA).

what a pathetic situation and this many days with little info for the travelers or remedies, no way I'd book with any of this group until we hear some serious explanations

Awesome how both of our afternoon CLT-PIT flights were downgraded from mainline to PSA CRJ9s in the latest schedule update and this happens.

How do you know it’s a PSA computer issue? There are obviously links between the AA system and the PSA system to transfer information.

https://twitter.com/crankyflier/status/ ... 99392?s=19

This seems to be far from resolution

winGl3t wrote:

Suggest title change to "PSA Airlines". It can be confused with Pisa Airport (PSA).

Also PSA ( LIRP ) had significant cancelations, by the way

AA definitely filling up the DL flights out of SRQ with all the stranded PSA customers. First three flights today are oversold now. Gate agents are having a tough time finding volunteers for these early flights when the first flight with an open seat isn’t until 3pm. Dollar amounts quickly rose above 1k. Guess it’s a blessing and a curse for DL right now.

The AA situation is probably worse here than many others because all the CLT service is on PSA CRJ900’s. Only one non PSA flight a day here to DCA.

colemathews22 wrote:

Guess they should change their call sign from Blue Streak to Brown Streak

We were calling them that since ‘05.


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32andBelow wrote:

How do you know it’s a PSA computer issue? There are obviously links between the AA system and the PSA system to transfer information.

Because it is PSA IT issues, that's how we know...

SRQflyer wrote:

AA definitely filling up the DL flights out of SRQ with all the stranded PSA customers. First three flights today are oversold now. Gate agents are having a tough time finding volunteers for these early flights when the first flight with an open seat isn’t until 3pm. Dollar amounts quickly rose above 1k. Guess it’s a blessing and a curse for DL right now.

The AA situation is probably worse here than many others because all the CLT service is on PSA CRJ900’s. Only one non PSA flight a day here to DCA.

A coworker at SRQ is supposed to fly out Thursday on PSA and was told by the staff that it will be close to another week before it gets resolved. I wonder how many passengers are sent to Tampa to fly out on AA.

enicideme wrote:

Unless you dig in, there is no difference between AA and PSA.

Even if you dig in, there's really no difference between AA & PSA. PSA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group and operates exclusively on American Airlines' behalf, on schedules chosen by American, with equipment chosen by American, to airports chosen by American, offering an in-cabin product determined by American, with passengers who bought tickets on "American." In the end, PSA and its sister carriers are legal fictions meant to arbitrage labor costs between mainline carriers and so-called "regional" carriers.

There is an operational difference in that an IT failure can affect the regional carrier but not the mainline carrier, but then ultimately the decision to operate with multiple airline subsidiaries is indirectly a root cause in that the money available to invest in resilient IT systems at the regional subsidiaries is almost undoubtedly less than at the mainline carriers -- so the likelihood of an event like this is higher.

LotsaRunway wrote:

Don't the airlines have full duplicate file servers and other redundancies? Maybe a more manual way to operate a skeleton schedule?

If the problem is in dispatch, the issue is that the state of the operation is constantly changing. You can have backup systems, but they have to update in real-time with the primary system or they're near useless. If it's 7 PM on Tuesday, it's no help to know where the planes and crews were at 2 AM when the full backup occurred. If some process on the primary system ended up corrupting data and the backup(s) run a similar process to stay up-to-date, there's a decent chance that the data on the secondary system(s) also was corrupted.

LotsaRunway wrote:

If you assume all passengers on a 90% full flight needs to be rebooked onto other scheduled flights that are also about 90% full, its going to take around 9 days to get them all out.

Eh, it's not quite that simple in that flights more than a day or so out aren't going to be 90% booked, some people will find their own way rather than waiting (i.e. driving to GSO/CAE/GSP/RDU/EWN/ILM/SAV/CHS/ROA), and some people will just take a refund on the ticket. In AA markets predominantly served by PSA, the backlog might take days to clear. In a market like PIT where only a handful are on PSA, it might take a day, if that.

Hmm... flying PSA DCA-PVD 7/6... will prob be fixed before then but makes me question alot....