Travelers wait in line at the Delta Airlines counter at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia on July 19, 2024. Airlines around the world experienced disruptions of unprecedented proportions after a widespread global computer outage grounded planes and caused chaos at airports.
Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian apologized for hundreds of canceled flights and offered travelers frequent flyer miles as the airline struggled to recover from Friday's global IT outage, which sparked criticism from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The Atlanta-based airline canceled more than 4,600 flights from Friday through Sunday, more than any other airline, according to aviation data firm OAG.
By Monday morning, Delta had already canceled another 550 flights, or 15 percent of its core operations.
The delays and cancellations have put Delta in a rare light for an airline whose executives pride themselves on its reliability and punctuality.
“We continue to receive reports of unacceptable disruptions and customer service conditions at Delta Air Lines, including hundreds of complaints filed with our department,” Buttigieg said in an emailed statement late Sunday. “I have made it clear to Delta that we expect the airline to provide prompt refunds” to customers who cancel their trips due to the disruptions, as well as “timely refunds for meals and hotel accommodations to consumers affected by the delays and cancellations, and appropriate customer service support for all of its passengers.”
Delta's disruptions continued while most other airlines recovered. American Airlines said that by Saturday things were almost back to normal.
“I want to apologize to each of you affected by these events,” Bastian said in a message to customers. “Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted.”
The airline offered flight attendants extra pay to cover shifts, a staff memo said Sunday. The airline called some of them on their personal phones to get them to come to work, according to a person familiar with the matter. High demand during one of the busiest summer periods challenged the airline to find alternative flights for affected travelers, Bastian said in his memo.
United Airlines Delta also had to contend with an increase in flight disruptions on Sunday: According to FlightAware, 9% of the flight schedule, or 260 flights, were canceled, but this is still below Delta's figure.
Delta Air Lines has a number of Microsoft Several tools were affected by the outage. “In particular, one of our employee tracking tools was impacted and could not effectively handle the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown,” Bastian said in his note.
This would make the event resemble a problem Southwest Airlines The region suffered even more severely in late 2022, when it did not recover from severe winter weather conditions for days.
A botched software update from a cybersecurity company Crowdstrike which brought down some Windows-based programs, also hit the banking and healthcare sectors.
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