Atlanta
CNN
—
Three days after a problem with a computer update caused more than 5,000 flights to be canceled around the world, things have largely returned to normal, except for Delta Airlines.
Based in Atlanta Delta canceled 1,500 flights on Friday, more than a third of its total, more than any other airline in the world, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. The airline canceled nearly 3,000 more over the weekend and another 700 early Monday, about 60% of all flights canceled by airlines worldwide. While most other U.S. airlines have canceled only 1% of their flights, Delta canceled about one in six scheduled flights.
Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian apologized for the confusion in a notice to customers on Sunday and said the problem was due to a computer program affecting “crew tracking” software.
“One of our crew tracking related tools was affected and was unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes caused by the outage,” he wrote in a note to customers. “Our teams are working around the clock to restore and regain full functionality.”
While the CrowdStrike issue affected computers that are supposed to check in passengers at many airlines, big and small, Delta appears to be the only airline whose critical crew scheduling software was affected.
At Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport on Monday, friends Nicole DaSilva, Tiffany Denlinger and Melissa Levin had been flying home to Tucson, Arizona, since Saturday after an international trip to Athens, but were told it could take until Wednesday or Thursday to find a flight for the final leg of their trip.
“We were on several different flights, but they were all canceled,” DaSilva said, clutching her tickets that were no longer usable.
Denlinger was glued to her phone, waiting to speak to a Delta employee. She held up her phone to show how long she’d been on hold. “Six hours and 20 minutes,” she said.
But a video message sent to Delta employees by Bastian and Delta’s chief information officer, Rahul Samant, said the issue with the airline’s critical crew tracking system had still not been resolved as of Monday morning.
“So we’re optimistic we can get through it,” Samant said in a video message. “Like Ed said, we’re going to be doing some things today and tomorrow to try and get the situation better by the weekend.” He said IT staff was “working diligently” and “around the clock” to resolve the issue.
Delta Air Lines still appears to have no idea about its crew members’ whereabouts. Crew members who log into the airline’s computer system to book flights are asked prompts and questions like, “Enter your nearest airport code below,” “What’s the current situation?” and “Describe your current location.”
A person familiar with the airline’s operations provided CNN with a screenshot of the prompt. Delta Airlines declined to comment on the screenshots.
According to screenshots seen by CNN, Delta is offering its flight attendants extra benefits and the added assurance that they will be able to return home at the end of their shifts. The extra benefits and guarantees are set to last until Friday, another sign that staffing issues may not be resolved for a few more days. Delta also declined to comment on these offers to flight attendants.
The problem of flight cancellations and delays caused nightmares for travelers all weekend. “The biggest IT outage in history” it is CrowdstrikeThe shutdown of an estimated 8.5 million computers running Windows software worldwide disrupted hospital operations, package deliveries, banking and retail transactions.
CrowdStrike said late Sunday that a “significant number” of its affected computers were “back online and operational.” But for the affected airlines, it’s not just the computers that need fixing: It could take even longer to repopulate the crews needed to fly planes in the right cities.
“An airline is like a circulatory system: if you stop for even a short time, blood doesn’t get to where it needs to be,” says airline consultant Michael Boyd. “Getting the plane back to where it needs to be, getting the passengers back to where they need to be — all of that takes time. So even if you’re disrupted for even a few hours, recovery times can take five times as long.”
Bastian’s message to Delta customers said passengers’ issues were exacerbated by the busy summer travel season.
“The technical issues occurred during one of the busiest summer travel weekends and limited our ability to re-accommodate guests as we were over 90% booked,” he wrote.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discussed the issue with Bastian on Sunday and outlined steps to compensate passengers, according to a Department of Transportation statement.
“We have made it clear to Delta that they must promptly refund consumers who do not wish to rebook, rebook at no charge to consumers affected by delays and cancellations, provide timely refunds for meals and hotel accommodations, and provide appropriate customer service assistance to all passengers,” Buttigieg said in a statement from the Transportation Department. “No one should be stranded overnight at an airport or wait hours to speak with a customer service representative.”
“We will continue to provide meal vouchers, hotel accommodations and available transportation, and as a token of our apologies, we will also offer Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers to affected customers,” Bastian said in a message to Delta passengers.
Delta’s problems are similar to those experienced by Southwest Airlines. 2022 New Year’s holiday travel period The problem came when nearly 17,000 flights had to be canceled for more than a week. Crew Schedule SystemSouthwest’s labor union criticized the move as “outdated,” and Southwest executives vowed to make improvements in the wake of the service collapse.
