Low-fare airline flies from Windows Server to Linux

Computerworld - A small, regional airline is using Linux to help reshape itself into a new national low-fare air carrier.
The new airline, Independence Air, had operated since 1989 as Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings Inc., a regional carrier that flew short connecting flights in partnership with United Air Lines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. But after Chicago-based United's bankruptcy filing in December 2002, Atlantic Coast Airlines decided to set out on its own.
Last Nov. 19, Atlantic was reborn as Independence Air, a move that brought with it a set of IT challenges, said Duffy Mees, vice president of IT for the Dulles, Va.-based airline.
"It was a fairly significant change from an IT standpoint because [in the past], our major partners provided all the IT services," he said. The new company had to create and deploy a whole infrastructure on its own, from ticketing to passenger check-in to self-serve kiosks and other tasks.
As Atlantic, the airline had used thin-client terminals and servers running Microsoft Windows Terminal Server. That gave remote users access to Microsoft Office and kept all critical data in a central data center to reduce IT staffing needs, Mees said.
But when the airline retooled itself as Independence Air and took over its own IT operations, a compatibility problem arose with the networked ticket and boarding-pass printing system it had chosen. The problem, Mees said, was that a Windows driver couldn't be found that allowed the system to work reliably at ticket counters.
The solution: Move to Linux thin-client terminals from King of Prussia, Pa.-based Neoware Systems Inc., which allowed Independence Air IT staffers to configure custom drivers for the printers using Linux software code, according to Mees. "It gave us a solution that was much more difficult to achieve in the Windows world," he said.
The Neoware terminals run Red Hat Linux 6.0. "We have been very satisfied with their product so far," Mees said, noting that the airline had already been using Linux for its Web site, so IT staffers were familiar with its use and strengths.
Independence Air has about 4,200 employees across the country, including 30 IT workers providing database support, network and PC help, desktop support and application development, Mees said. It serves more than a dozen U.S. cities and is expected to serve about 45 cities in the Midwest and eastern U.S. by November.
The airline began flying June 16, and by the end of summer, it expects to offer about 300 daily departures from Dulles Airport, Mees said.