Hacker News Reader

The problem with this argument is that there is already dependency on the systems. If a system is down, travel may be halted regardless of if there are human staff members present.

> Imagine a hack attack or bug (it happens) that causes all terminals to stop working for 12 hours on the airport like JFK. What would be the losses? Would it be still worth it?

We already get hours-long mainframe outages, not to mention weather shutting down airports entirely. The system survives just fine.

We also already get strikes.

> We already get hours-long mainframe outages

I often wonder if those outages aren't sometimes caused by hackers to begin with. Publicizing them as hacks would only serve to cause panic, and let other hackers know how vulnerable their systems are.

Maybe it's a European thing, but I've spent more time delayed in airports due to humans striking than I have due to computer systems being down.