United Kiosk Software Fails on Leap Day, Delays Check-ins

[Matt Molnar]

Software snafu delays United Airlines' check-ins on Leap Day (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-ap-il-united-leapday,0,203768.story)

Associated Press
1:35 PM CST, February 29, 2008

CHICAGO - Passengers using United Airlines' "Easy Check-In" found it anything but that on Leap Day when the automated system failed, resulting in longer lines at its U.S. airport counters.

The Chicago-based carrier blamed the service interruption on software issues related to the leap year.

Spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says customers couldn't get Easy Check-In kiosks to confirm they had been checked in or print out their boarding passes for several hours. [Read more (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-ap-il-united-leapday,0,203768.story)]

[Nonstop2AUH]

Anyone know if this was software developed in house? Seems odd it didn't affect anyone else.

[Lezam]

Y2K all over again!

[hiss srq]

Sounds like a typical day at UA to me.

[moose135]

The Chicago-based carrier blamed the service interruption on software issues related to the leap year.

Yeah, because it's not like they couldn't see that coming for like the last four years :shock:

[Nonstop2AUH]

I find it amusing because before Y2K, I was working at a small business that got a form letter from some faceless lawyers or IT managers at its large corporate client requiring us to 'certify' that our systems were Y2K compliant. They didn't quite understand my response that as a small business, we ran a few PCs and had no network, and were actually not the vendor they should be worried about, they thought because we were small our PCs might spontaneously combust at midnight or turn into Transformers or espresso machines or something. Of course, absolutely nothing happened with us, but the Dilbert-esq big company shakedown was more than a bit irritating around the '99 holidays, so I'm always amused when a big company has a meltdown over something as basic and predictable as this. I've got a suggestion for a check-in system that doesn't fail because of what day it is. It's called people behind a desk!