Websites and services on the web rely on many resources. And sometimes, they are interwoven to an extent that, when one service is down, it will suffer many others that are using its service.
Google is one of the largest online service.
One of its product, called the ITA Software, allows clients to create a online services for the travel industry. With the ITA Software that Google acquired back in 2011, websites can have features like airfare search and pricing system. It can go beyond that, providing things like reservations system, inventory control, seat availability, check-in, airport operations, and more.
ITA Software is crucial in websites used many airliners.
And when such software is down, the incident can bring many websites used airliners to go down with it.
Websites for American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines showed error messages when users visited their sites to look up for flights on Monday afternoon.
Both Delta and United Airlines acknowledged that their websites appeared to not be working like they should.
“Delta.com and the Fly Delta app are functioning normally after experiencing an issue this afternoon that made it difficult for customers to purchase flights on delta.com, the Fly Delta app, and through our Reservations Call Center,” Delta said in a statement. “The issue was caused by the failure of technology provided to Delta and multiple airlines by Google. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused.”
Responding to customers who were struggling to book a flight, American Airlines tweeted, “Yes, we're aware that the website is down. We're working hard to resolve those issues.”
"We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. There was no impact to flight operations and customers were still able to check in for flights through aa.com," American Airlines said.
A United Airlines spokesperson added that customers may still book flights through the airline's phone system.
Alphabet Inc’s Google confirmed that there was an issue with its ITA software, which powers ticketing and other services on the websites. A spokesperson for Google said that a "known issue" on its side was found.
The company quickly scrambled, and the ITA Software glitch was fixed in about two hours.
It should be noted that other major U.S. airliners, such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines, were not affected by this glitch.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that people that weren't fully-vaccinated are still advised not to travel.
"CDC recommends delaying travel until you are fully vaccinated, because travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19," the agency said in the guidance.
However, for those have been fully-vaccinated, travelers that travel domestically inside the U.S. do not have to be tested before boarding a flight, unless their destination requires a test. COVID-19 tests should still be taken before international flights, and masks should still be worn on planes regardless of vaccination status, the CDC said.
"CDC will update these recommendations as more people are vaccinated, as rates of COVID-19 change, and as additional scientific evidence becomes available," it said.
At the same time as the agency issued the guidance, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cautions travelers.
"We know that right now we have a surging number of cases," she said. "I would advocate against general travel overall. Our guidance is silent on recommending or not recommending fully vaccinated people travel. Our guidance speaks to the safety of doing so. If you are vaccinated it is lower risk."
Air travel numbers were already rising even before the CDC issued the updated guidance. More than 1.5 million people went through security checkpoints on Thursday alone, according to the agency's data.
With the updated guidance, the airline industry can have a sigh of relief, as they expect to slowly recover their huge losses caused by travel restrictions imposed by government because of the 'COVID-19' coronavirus.
And this ITA Software issue came just days after the CDC released this updated guidance.
