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 are experiencing disruption on an unprecedented scale after a global computer outage spread and caused chaos at airports.
Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian apologized and offered frequent flyer miles to travelers for hundreds of flight cancellations as the carrier struggled to recover from a global IT outage, a disruption that drew criticism from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The Atlanta-based airline canceled more than 4,600 flights from Friday to Sunday, more than any other airline, according to flight data firm OAG.
As of early Monday, Delta had canceled another 550 flights, or 15% of its mainline operations.
The delays and cancellations put Delta in a rare spotlight for a carrier whose leaders pride themselves on reliability and punctuality.
“We continue to receive reports of unacceptable harassment and customer service conditions at Delta Air Lines, including hundreds of complaints filed with our Department,” Buttigieg said in an emailed statement on Sunday. “I have made it clear to Delta that we expect the airline to provide prompt refunds” to customers who choose to cancel travel due to the disruption as well as “timely reimbursement for food and hotel overnight stays for consumers affected by delays and cancellations. , as well as assistance adequate customer service for all passengers.”
The outage continued at Delta while most other carriers recovered. American Airlines He said it was almost back to normal by Monday.
“I want to apologize to everyone affected by the event,” 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 journey is disrupted.”
The airline is offering flight attendants extra pay for taking shifts, a staff memo said Sunday. The operator called several people on their personal phones to sign in, according to people familiar with the matter. High demand during the busiest summer season challenged the airline to find alternative flights for affected travelers, Bastian said in the note.
United Airlines also experienced flight disruptions on Sunday with 9% of its schedule canceled, or 260 flights, according to FlightAware, but still below Delta.
Delta Air Lines has several Microsoft tools affected during the outage, “especially one of the tools related to crew tracking was affected and could not effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown,” Bastian said in his note.
That will make the event equal to the problem Southwest Airlines suffered, on a larger scale, at the end of 2022 when it failed to recover from severe winter weather for several days.
Botched software updates from cybersecurity companies Crowdstrike which crippled some Windows-based programs also hit the banking and healthcare industries.
