Last month’s Amazon Web Services outage crippled many industries that rely on cloud computing services, highlighting the danger of putting all your eggs in one basket.
Among the worst hit were airlines, hotels and businesses linked to the tourism sector, especially private-hire vehicles, Travel and Tour World reports, as the outage prevented bookings, check-ins and payments being made.
Grounded
Flight management and tracking systems were also affected as most major cities faced backlogs of stranded passengers.
Transportation services including PHVs, buses, and car rentals also faced significant delays, especially those that rely on booking apps.
The silver lining was that taxi and PHV drivers who take cash payments and do not rely solely on booking apps for fares, were able to carry on as usual – and managed to pick up extra business as demand surged.
Travel and Tour World said that while Amazon resolved the issue within hours, “the financial damage had already been done”.
It added: “The Amazon clouds blackout is a stark lesson on the dire consequences to the world shift to cloud computing. While the tourism sector in the UK is grappling with the impacts, the focus will be on the future of critical systems. It is possible that the UK government will try to reduce exposure to such risks by ensuring some form of continuous backup systems and proper contingency plans.”
Cash to the rescue
Taxi Point shared the issues affecting the industry, which saw some drivers unable to process card payments or access booking apps. Some drivers said it forced them to rely on cash until the systems were restored.
Taxi Point said: “The incident highlights how reliant many taxi operators have become on digital systems for both payments and bookings. When those systems fail, even temporarily, drivers can be left unable to take card fares or communicate with dispatch systems.
“For most taxi drivers, the incident was a reminder that cash remains a vital backup when technology fails. As one driver put it: ‘Cash has worked fine’.”
It is a sentiment shared by Patons Insurance earlier this year, following news that Uber is now allowing many passengers in the UK to pay with cash.
Launched as a cashless business, Uber does allow individual drivers to opt out of taking cash payments, especially if they are worried about safety.
While it would have helped passengers pay during last month’s outage, they would still have faced difficulties booking a ride.
Safety net
One of the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic was that businesses need to be flexible not only in the way they operate and deliver services, but also their structure and set-up behind the scenes. Ultimately, they need to be able to adjust in order to work and get paid.
While there is a real push towards a cashless society, incidents such as the Amazon outage demonstrate how depending on technology – however reliable it has proven to be – can have dire consequences if things go wrong.
As we rely more on technology and online bookings and payments, the most robust model to get through the incident was the most-simple one – taxis – with public hire insurance which allows them to be hailed in the street or from a taxi rank. They carried on as they did before ride-hailing apps came along, unaffected by the outage.
