ATLANTA—The airline had cancelled more than 650 flights by 5:00 PM EDT as of Monday, August 8, 2016.  Just days before National BDPA’s Technology Conference in Atlanta, the outage triggered massive delays world wide.

Mashable reports Delta’s so-called power outage likely occurred in an unconventional manner.   Georgia Power, regional provider of electricity to millions of customers in Georgia where Delta’s headquarters is located, reported no outages. Mashable also reports aviation experts observed the outage occurred in the early hours of the morning during off-peak travel times in CONUS, normal times to conduct tests.

The likely cause may have been normally scheduled “back-up” power tests that went south very fast when switching from primary to alternative power sources and back.  This did not occur properly and Delta’s main power to computer systems were not restored in a timely manner. Delta’s check-in systems remained offline and associated mobile apps subsequently failed.

Could this week’s outage be classified a “cyber” event?  Are continuity of operations and disaster recovery plans (CoOP/DR) thoroughly tested?   Read more…

— Source: Mashable.com
Photo courtesy: Delta Air Lines, Inc.

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For additional information  and updates from this week’s National BDPA Technology Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, visit: BDPA.org or follow  bdpatoday on Twitter.