Atlanta
CNN
—
Bad news for passengers: Delta Air Lines canceled hundreds more flights early Tuesday morning, as the problems caused by last week’s global tech outage continued into a fifth day. Worse news: Delta’s meltdown will probably extend through the end of the week.
The meltdown has ensnared an estimated half a million people, ruined holidays and travel plans and prompted a federal investigation – even as Delta flight cancellations and delays are ongoing and far outpacing issues at other carriers.
As of 2pm ET the Atlanta-based airline had canceled 466 flights, and Endeavor Air, its regional carrier that feeds its system under the Delta Connection brand, had canceled another 28 flights. The cancellations follow more than 1,250 flight cancellations Monday, and 4,500 flights from Friday through Sunday between Delta and Delta connection.
There were more than 1,000 Delta and Delta Connection listed as delayed by FlightAware. The canceled flights by the two carriers represented nearly 70% of all flights within, to or from the United States that have been canceled on Monday, according to FlightAware. No other US airline had canceled one tenth as many flights.
The problems prompted the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to announce the Department of Transportation would be starting an investigation to make sure Delta is following the law and treating passengers fairly.
“I’m hearing a lot of things I’m very concerned about, including people being on hold for hours and hours trying to get a new flight. people having to sleep on airport floors, even accounts of unaccompanied minors being stranded in airports unable to get on a flight,” Buttigieg told reporters on Tuesday.
“Part of why we were opening this investigation is the scale of the problem,” he added. “Over 6,000 flights have been canceled since Friday, hundreds of flights have been canceled today, and we estimate that more than half a million passengers have been impacted by this.”
The DOT said it has received a “high volume of consumer complaints” about Delta’s actions since Friday. The department said if can penalize an airline for “an unfair and deceptive practice” if it finds finds that an airline provided inadequate customer assistance when flights are canceled or travel plans significantly changed.
Buttigieg asked passengers with complaints to contact the Department of Transportation.
“While you should first try to resolve issues directly with the airline, we want to hear from passengers who believe that Delta has not complied with USDOT-enforced passenger protection requirements during the recent travel disruptions,” he tweeted. “We will follow up.”
Delta said it cooperating with the investigation.
“We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation,” the company told CNN in a statement. “Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta.”
The problems stemmed from a software update issued late Thursday night by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that crashed Windows software. A cascade effect caused problems throughout the global airline industry last Friday.
Although most airlines were able to recover and resume normal operations by the end of the weekend, Delta has been unable to fix problems with its crew tracking system, leaving it unable to find the pilots and flight attendants it needed to fly its planes.
The problems will continue for at least a few more days, warned Rahul Samant, the company’s chief information officer, in a message to Delta employees Monday.
“So we’re optimistic we’ll get it done,” Samant said in the video message along with CEO Ed Bastian. “There will be some things as Ed said, that we will do today, tomorrow to get to a better place by the end of the week.” He said the IT staff is working “feverishly” and “around the clock” to fix the problem.
Frustrated passengers and crews
The problems left tens of thousands of frustrated Delta customers stranded and unable to return home. Many of them booked other flights that were subsequently canceled as well. A lack of hotel rooms forced many to sleep in airports and wait for hours on hold trying to get through to Delta in an often-futile effort to find a flight.
Delta crew members are dealing with similar frustrations. Many have been left stranded in airports far from their bases and homes, unable to be placed on flights because Delta has been unable to locate crews and place them on planes. Some Delta crew members are also unable to get hotel rooms and are sleeping at airports. And airport employees are contending with angry, frustrated customers who don’t understand why their flights are being canceled when crew members are available.
Jeremy and Kaylee Jones were married on Saturday and left Spokane, Washington Monday for their honeymoon, they told CNN. Five guests weren’t able to attend the wedding due to flight issues.
They arrived in Atlanta early Tuesday morning for a connecting flight from Atlanta to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. There were no issues with the flights until they landed in Atlanta this morning and saw the flight to St. Lucia was cancelled due to a lack of crew. The next Delta flight to St. Lucia is not until Friday, so they are canceling their honeymoon.
The only other option is to be re-routed to other airports, which they believe will have the same problem, and they still don’t have their luggage.
“Currently I’m pretty sour,” Jeremy Jones said. “I get that things happen. This is just shocking to me that a multi-billion dollar corporation would struggle this much to get the ball rolling again.”
“I’m thinking the domino effect of flight cancellations are causing people to be stuck here for 5 days. I have no confidence in getting anywhere at this point.”