This is what happens when computer screens turn humans into robots. We need more academic studies of "irregular operations", the term used by the airline industry for any event where unpredictable real-world events intrude on planned schedules. At such times, senior human customer service agents are empowered to override computer models, with later reconciliation.

The field is called "Operations Research". I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Cook in the speaker lounge right before he gave this keynote at Velocity 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0k12uZR14

Thank you for the video. Very informative!