Qantas retires ancient system

[bambbbam2]

You learn something everyday..

Qantas retires ancient system | Australian IT

THE Qantas frequent flyer program, the jewel in the Flying Kangaroo's crown, has been running on a 22-year-old system developed in Fortran, a programming language created in the 1950s.

As a result, Qantas Loyalty, the division that oversees the hugely popular points program, has embarked on a core upgrade of its loyalty management system.


A revamp of the Teradata data warehousing system is also in the offing but it is the work around Profile, Qantas Loyalty's customer relationship management system, that has turned heads.


"Profile is our legacy CRM system that was built for the business 22 years ago and written in Fortran," said Qantas Loyalty chief executive Simon Hickey.

 

[anat0l]

LOL Fortran FTW.... or maybe not..... :mrgreen:

I remember being given a story in 3rd year Software Engineering about an airline in the US that had an ancient reservation system that was written in COBOL. Unfortunately, the company had not foreseen that the number of tickets or something else would exceed the range of integers possible for the program to record.

The result when the count reached integer overflow was nothing short of chaotic and near disastrous for the company. Pilots received conflicting instructions, passengers lost flights, flights were cancelled, etc.

Of course we can all blame the bean counters for never giving adequate thought for a system overhaul.

 

[one9]

I think Qantas Frequent Flyer has done an excellent job with their ancient system.

From the customer perspective the Qantas frequent flyer website is one of the most user friendly and feature packed that I have used.

I don't doubt that they have faced some challenges implementing some of the features with such an old system. I think that they have done a very good job.

 

[tassiedude]

I think Qantas Frequent Flyer has done an excellent job with their ancient system.

From the customer perspective the Qantas frequent flyer website is one of the most user friendly and feature packed that I have used.

I don't doubt that they have faced some challenges implementing some of the features with such an old system. I think that they have done a very good job.

Just imagine the costs in maintaining such a system though

 

[serfty]

Just imagine the costs in maintaining such a system though

Qantas have been trying to get rid of the final vestiges their backend USAS "system" for several years.

There was a huge internal push to have it completed by the end of this year, but the GFC and tightened budgets has put paid to that ambition.

 

[wandering_fred]

Yes, I started with Fortran many years ago.

There are some things that are interesting to accomplish in Fortran - pushing character strings around for example. But to someone truly proficient, it is extremely powerful for numerical calculations. And the compilers for it aren't going to disappear tomorrow, even if the sales of such will never inflate software houses profits.

In many respects programming languages have become as much political issues as technical. As the ability to code in XYZ becomes less trendy/desirable by people starting work (or university instructors) , management becomes concerned that they won't be able to continue to support systems written in XYZ. And the cycle goes on.

It is interesting that COBOL-based systems are still being written....... and sold.

Fred

 

[bambbbam2]

I used to work supporting a COBOL based accounting product.

It was pretty stable - we did have a few fun issues, such as it wouldn't accept that 29 Feb 2000 was a real day.

Years such as 1600,1700,1800 and 1900 were not leap years. For some reason the software thought that 2000 was also not a leap year.

 

[wandering_fred]

Years such as 1600,1700,1800 and 1900 were not leap years. For some reason the software thought that 2000 was also not a leap year.

It's the exception to the exception.......:mrgreen:

Fred

 

[rwatts]

Years such as 1600,1700,1800 and 1900 were not leap years. For some reason the software thought that 2000 was also not a leap year.

Actually 1600 was a leap year in the Gregorian calendar (evenly divisible by 400).

Richard

 

[bambbbam2]

See? Told you it was confusing!

OT but i remember the first time I went to BKK and they stamped my passport as having arrived in the year 2525 (?!)

I always thought that was a 60s song..

 

[oz_mark]

See? Told you it was confusing!

OT but i remember the first time I went to BKK and they stamped my passport as having arrived in the year 2525 (?!)

I always thought that was a 60s song..

The Thai's are on a different calanedar, and it is 2552 this year