Air India's crew management software, that auto rosters crew assignments, crashed on Sunday night, leading to an ever-cascading delay in operations. Around 28 flights, headed towards various destinations in the US and Europe, were delayed as the airline staff tried hard to restart it.
The software, also known as ARMS, uses algorithms to decide duties of the crew -- based on user-defined rules, policies, parameters and constraints.
A senior Air India official said, "The scheduling system collapsed leading to utter chaos as there were no record of which of the crew were to operate on which flight."
The official added that the problem cropped up after eight contract employees, who were trained in operating the roster, were terminated on Saturday after a vigilance probe showed that they were fudging records, taking money from crew to assign them duties on flights of their preference and staying in the office itself. Air India initiated the vigilance probe after the All India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA) wrote to Air India's chairman and managing director Rohit Nandan quite a few times.
The crew, on the other hand, were sent text messages, explaining to them about the technical snag that led to the collapse of ARMS. "I was told to follow assignments given on phone and system SMS and not rely on the ARMS system," a crew waiting to operate a flight to Birmingham said.
19/08/14 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
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The software, also known as ARMS, uses algorithms to decide duties of the crew -- based on user-defined rules, policies, parameters and constraints.
A senior Air India official said, "The scheduling system collapsed leading to utter chaos as there were no record of which of the crew were to operate on which flight."
The official added that the problem cropped up after eight contract employees, who were trained in operating the roster, were terminated on Saturday after a vigilance probe showed that they were fudging records, taking money from crew to assign them duties on flights of their preference and staying in the office itself. Air India initiated the vigilance probe after the All India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA) wrote to Air India's chairman and managing director Rohit Nandan quite a few times.
The crew, on the other hand, were sent text messages, explaining to them about the technical snag that led to the collapse of ARMS. "I was told to follow assignments given on phone and system SMS and not rely on the ARMS system," a crew waiting to operate a flight to Birmingham said.
19/08/14 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
