Recently I’ve spent some time in airports and while waiting for my flights one sound that always seems to catch my attention over all of the conversations, announcements or other hubbub is that of a dot matrix printer buzzing away. Last I checked you can’t even buy a dot matrix printer, let alone use one every single day in a commercial environment, so why are airlines using these dinosaurs? Is there some collusion between the manufacturers of green bar paper, printer ribbon and the airlines?
Yes, I realize I’m struggling to come up with a topic for today’s post, but I seriously can’t come up with a good reason not to use laser printers for whatever hard copies the airlines need to print out at the gate. What do you think?
10/90
2 responses to “Dot Matrix”
Only reason I can think of is that maybe airlines can’t replace anything that isn’t actively failing because they don’t have two nickels to rub together.
I think there’s a definite “if it ain’t broke, don’t stop using it” mentality with airlines and their IT systems/technology. When United took over Continental they decided to use the more antiquated IT system of the 2 airlines simply because it would take less time to bring the other online. I was chatting with a United employee on the week that the new system took over. It was quite a mess.