UNITED AIRLINES cannot seem to get its computers to work properly. In March the airline drew widespread criticism (including from this blog) for computer difficulties that led to delays and cancelled flights. Those problems were attributed to United's messy merger with Continental Airlines. In June a "network connectivity" issue resulted in many more cancellations. On Thursday, just before one of the busiest American travel times of the year (the week of the Thanksgiving holiday), United had computer problems again. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The latest glitch involved the dispatch system software that enables Chicago-based United to communicate with airplanes before departure, delivering information on the plane's weight and balance, number of passengers and baggage, said United spokesman Charlie Hobart.... The outage occurred from about 7.30 to 9.30am Thursday and resulted in 257 delays directly attributable to the outage and more through the day, along with about 10 cancellations.


"It is flat-out unacceptable," said Henry Harteveldt, co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group. "This makes United a laughing stock among airlines."

He said airline computer systems are complex and Thursday's problem might be a one-time issue, but the repeated failures are not only embarrassing for United, they "undermine trust in the airline" and "demoralise employees."

"There are clearly failures in the airline's strategy and the airline's execution, and heads need to roll," he said. "United's (chief information officer) should resign or be dismissed."

It's always prudent to wait for all the facts to come out before calling for people to lose their jobs. But something is clearly amiss at United, and the airline desperately needs to get its IT act together. Top leadership at United must have known that their customers and the press would be watching them closely after earlier IT mishaps. That they still couldn't keep their systems online (or have adequate back-ups available) is damning, and it's no surprise that some analysts are calling for C-suite firings. 

If these sorts of issues continue, United deserves to lose customers, and probably will. Nobody is going to fly with an airline that repeatedly cancels flights on clear days because it can't get its computers to work.