Air Canada Upgrades to Vista
Air Canada might be regretting it’s recent upgrade to Vista, the latest major release to the Microsoft Windows operation system since 2001. Vista has had a bumpy start, but until last week, Air Canada had only the usual upgrade woes.
Apparently, the Vista upgrade required major hardware upgrades and had numerous compatibility issues with the Airbus 319 architecture.
The Toronto Star reported the following:
“Passengers screamed and hit the ceiling as Air Canada Flight 190 plunged thousands of metres through the sky during 15 seconds of terror yesterday that became the longest moments in Liam King’s life.
“It was really quick … but it felt like an eternity,” said King, one of 88 people on board the aircraft that was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary after it bucked in midair, violently pitching people, dishes and drink carts about the cabin.”
When asked to comment, Air Canada’s Director of Information Technology, Chris P. Bacon, stated,
“We checked with the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List, and did not find any issues. We thought it would be fine, and it was. Though we did need to double the RAM, and upgrade our video output devices on the Airbus.”
During an incident debriefing, the pilot of flight 109, Hugh Jass, made the following comments:
“About 30 minutes into the flight, the frontal defibble nozzle and the tecumba tapar gear suddenly stopped responding.
“We received a message on our HUD (Heads Up Display) that read:
“Your keyboard is not responding. Press any key to continue.”
“We immediately ran the Windows Virus Detection application. It quickly detected itself, and asked if I wanted to remove it.”
“I hit ok, and it began to format the C: drive! I tried ctrl-alt-del, but I knew we were fucked.”
According to previous Airbus 319 passengers, the Vista upgrade was noticeable, but not without a price.
“The windows seemed… I don’t know, fancier?”, said Newfoundland and Labrador passenger Amanda Hugginkiss.
“The in-flight movie was choppy, and my tray table kept asking me for a password.”
Our reporters attempted to contact Microsoft Technical Support, but even after entering our credit card number, we could only leave a message. We did receive a call back however, which were able to record:
