Airlines and TOPS

[Peter Mugridge]

I have just discovered, through a mention elsewhere, that Qatar Airways uses TOPS to manage their fleet...

This got me thinking... how many other airlines also use TOPS? Is it a standard system in the airline industry?

 

[FrodshamJnct]

I have just discovered, through a mention elsewhere, that Qatar Airways uses TOPS to manage their fleet...

This got me thinking... how many other airlines also use TOPS? Is it a standard system in the airline industry?

Is it a case of two different systems with the same name?

A quick Google brings up this:

Manage Airline Ops and Mitigate Disruption with TOPS - Wipro

Empower airline operations management through Wipro's TOPS suite, offering holistic flight and crew operations, interface engine, real-time statistics, situational alerts, etc

www.wipro.com

I can’t imagine that airlines would use the TOPS that we know - surely it wouldn’t be advanced enough?

 

[birchesgreen]

TOPS is an ancient system (here is a nice IBM document from 1962! http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/tops/TOPS_SystemDesignReport_Mar62.pdf)

so i guess it could have evolved into something quite different depending on the industry and sold off?

Probably just a re-use of the name though.

 

[dosxuk]

I can’t imagine that airlines would use the TOPS that we know - surely it wouldn’t be advanced enough?

There is a lot of very old software underpinning the airline industry - while much has been done to make the front ends more user friendly, many are still underneath a text based query-response system with code dating from the middle of the 20th century.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The message I saw did specifically state: "Total Operations Processing System" but didn't say anything much about what was underneath it - but surely even our crazy IT world wouldn't have two completely different systems doing the same job having the same name?

 

[D7666]

It is a coincidence of names nothing more.

Apply Occams Razor. The simplest explanation is most likely the answer.

 

[birchesgreen]

Maybe one of the original developers was a rail enthusiast and used that name as a temporary code name, little did he know the marketing department would think it was awesome.

 

[D7666]

No doubt if it were named System for Processing Operations in Totality = SPOT someone would suggest the BR and Qatar systems were by train and plane spotters respectively.

IMHO Occam rules on this one.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's not the same system as railway TOPS as far as I know.