U.S. Airline Industry Headed Toward 'Catastrophe' at Current Oil Prices

[The Goose]

Fact check....

Blame Carty for TWA if you want, but Crandall was in charge when the CP deal started out, and also when Sabre was spun off.

Too bad so many of you are too busy playing the victim when you should be focusing on figuring out how to survive...

Getting rid of Sabre when they did was a good thing as the technology they had was about to fall prey to the newer stuff, IMHO. Mainframes are fine, but - everything (not literally but the equivalent) in Sabre underground can now be put in a reasonably sized bedroom.

Even though Sabre's capacity was nothing to laugh about (and still isn't), it's become a dinosaur compared to the newer stuff available. AMR got rid of it at the right time.

 

[limit]

Getting rid of Sabre when they did was a good thing as the technology they had was about to fall prey to the newer stuff, IMHO. Mainframes are fine, but - everything (not literally but the equivalent) in Sabre underground can now be put in a reasonably sized bedroom.

Even though Sabre's capacity was nothing to laugh about (and still isn't), it's become a dinosaur compared to the newer stuff available. AMR got rid of it at the right time.

To my knowledge AA (Sabre) did not own mainframe technology.
As far as capacity is concerned, they are in need of a larger bedroom.

For release: 26 Jul 2007
EDS Announces Plans To Expand Data Center In Tulsa

PLANO, Texas – EDS, a leading global technology services provider, today announced plans to expand its Service Management Center in Tulsa, Okla. The expansion will more than double the square footage of the data center to 440,000 square feet, enabling additional operations and high-density server capacity for EDS and its clients around the world.

The current facility, one of the nation’s premier data centers, has 76,000 square feet of raised floor space, and the expansion will bring the square footage up to approximately 156,000 square feet. EDS is expected to begin construction in the third quarter of 2007 with completion targeted for 2009.

“Expanding the data center facility in Tulsa positions EDS for sustained growth and will allow the company to continue delivering first-class information technology services to its clients well into the future,â€￾ said Keith Kasten, EDS vice president, Service Delivery. “There are many reasons EDS chose to expand operations in Tulsa, including access to a highly skilled workforce, lower energy costs and availability of technical infrastructure. We appreciate the support we have received from local representatives for making the expansion of our facility in Tulsa a reality.â€￾

Opened in 2003, the data center supports key commercial and public sector clients and is designed to withstand and continue operations during a natural disaster or man-made incident. The redundant dual system design of mechanical and electrical systems ensures continuous operation through maintenance activities and provides fault tolerant protection. With over 35 megawatts of emergency power, equivalent to powering more than 28,000 homes, and onsite fuel and water storage, this facility can self-sustain its “lights outâ€￾ operations for up to 10 days.





http://www.eds.com/news/releases/3840/?rss...&filterid=0

And just in case you did not know, HP will Acquire EDS for $13.9 Billion.No changes are expected at the Tulsa facility.

http://www.eds.com/news/releases/4550/

 

[eolesen]

Nce try, Limit, but the EDS data center they're referring to above is in the Cherokee Industrial Park, not the bunker where Sabre is housed.

And yes, the platform used for Sabre's core couldn't be any more mainframe than it is. Originally running on Series 7000 hardware, they moved to the Series 360 when the bunker in TUL was built. There was a plan to move to Compaq's Himalaya series for some of the more intensive functioins (i.e. Pricing), but TPF still lives at the core, and from what I'm told, will be there for years to come.

 

[limit]

Nce try, Limit, but the EDS data center they're referring to above is in the Cherokee Industrial Park, not the bunker where Sabre is housed.

And yes, the platform used for Sabre's core couldn't be any more mainframe than it is. Originally running on Series 7000 hardware, they moved to the Series 360 when the bunker in TUL was built. There was a plan to move to Compaq's Himalaya series for some of the more intensive functions (i.e. Pricing), but TPF still lives at the core, and from what I'm told, will be there for years to come.

Nice try?I am not sure what you mean.
In any case some of the work of old sabre is done at cherokee park,but that was not my point.
I was taking exception to goose's statement as to why sabre was sold ( being old technology).

The bunker itself goes through upgrades constantly according to a friend that works there,and he works with those "absolete" mainframes daily.Mainframes are definitely not obsolete.
There has been talk of moving the EDS ( bunker)operation ,or most of it to Plano a couple or three years back ,but other than layoffs nothing else came of it.

In my opinion AA should have kept sabre.

I can tell you the guys that I know that work there wish they were still with AA, especially since their AA travel benefits finally come to an end this summer.

 

[The Goose]

Nce try, Limit, but the EDS data center they're referring to above is in the Cherokee Industrial Park, not the bunker where Sabre is housed.

And yes, the platform used for Sabre's core couldn't be any more mainframe than it is. Originally running on Series 7000 hardware, they moved to the Series 360 when the bunker in TUL was built. There was a plan to move to Compaq's Himalaya series for some of the more intensive functioins (i.e. Pricing), but TPF still lives at the core, and from what I'm told, will be there for years to come.

Eric:
A couple of the newer Crays (multiple AMD multiple core CPUs) will put whatever they have under the dirtpile to shame and still have the room for an underground tennis court in the leftover space.

As I recall, the IBM 360 machine was rather old technology and was replaced with the more modern 4300 series, one of the last of those being the 4381 with some serious modding done to it. The later 7000 you were speaking of was, I believe, the one IBM programmed to play chess, calling it "Big Blue".

All were very adequate to retrieve data and present it but the 4381 was a real number cruncher - used one with Fortran IV and Fortran VS77 languages. They're really cool when activity is low as they're faster than any PC you've ever seen - on a 300 mile hardline at that time.

 

[FWAAA]

Sabre wasn't really sold, most was distributed to the shareholders of AMR - a classic spinoff.

I thought a major reason behind spinning off Sabre was the difficulty Sabre was having in selling its services to other airlines given that the profits were helping their biggest (or second biggest) competitor. An independent Sabre would be better able to thrive.

 

[formeraa]

IIRC, SABRE was spun off primarily because the government threatened to force AA to divest what was the top travel industry reservations system. The conventional wisdom was that an individual airline shouldn't control one of the major distribution networks at the time.