LAX procedures

Adding to the hell that is ordinarily Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), 20,000 passengers were stranded on Saturday local time when a customs service computer system broke down for around ten hours. The passengers were kept in four terminals and in 60 planes.

An AP story said:

A major switch in the system, which contains names of arriving passengers and law enforcement data about them, including arrest warrants, had failed and had to be replaced, said Mike Fleming, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman.

This is 2007: Hasn’t the customs service ever heard of backups? Wouldn’t you think that if this “switch” is so important that they’d have some sort of contingency plan? Or is stranding 20,000 people acceptable operating procedure for them?

Add this to the list of reasons why I’m determined to avoid flying into LAX the next time I come to America. I hate every second I spend in that airport; the risk of spending ten hours stuck there is too much to even contemplate.