WASHINGTON - When a computer glitch at a Federal Aviation Administration center caused widespread airline delays this week, it served as a reminder that the U.S. flight system is waiting for a modernizing overhaul. But it also appears the FAA’s management of its existing technologies falls short of standards in other vital sectors.

By using computing practices that would be considered poor in credit card networks or power plant operators, for example, the FAA was vulnerable to a problem caused when new software was loaded at the Atlanta center that distributes flight plans.

Because the FAA relies on just two computing systems, one in Atlanta and one in Salt Lake City, to handle that chore for the entire nation, the software glitch all but sank the system Tuesday. The Salt Lake center remained up and served as a backup, but it became overloaded by information coming from airlines. More than 600 flights were delayed from Atlanta all the way to Boston and Chicago.

A failure at the same Atlanta center caused major delays across the East Coast in June 2007.

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written by Andrew