FAA Delays: Same Problem, No Solutions

A software glitch that left thousands of passengers delayed or stranded at US airports yesterday is becoming a familiar problem with the Federal Aviation Administration, Kevin Kelleher writes in Portfolio. Pretty much the same thing—a cascade of overloaded servers—happened last week, and last year. "With 20-20 hindsight, the FAA should be able to respond quickly, right?" Kelleher protests.

A spokesman for air-traffic workers claims they weren't even told about the outage, saying the FAA "is pretty much out of control right now." After several inconsistent answers to media queries, an FAA spokesman was asked how many people were getting skewered because of this snafu. He responded: "I think it's primarily public affairs." (More FAA stories.)