Delta Air Lines struggled to recover for the fourth consecutive day Global technological disruption A caused Bad software updatesuffocating tens of thousands of commuters and drawing unwanted attention from the central government.
Other carriers returned to near-normal levels of service disruptions Monday, intensifying the glare. Delta is relatively weak A response to the outage that hit airlines, hospitals and businesses around the world.
Transport Secretary Pete Boutique I spoke to him Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Sunday about the airline’s highest number of cancellations since Friday. Buttigieg said his agency has received “hundreds of complaints” about Delta, and he expects the airline to offer hotels and meals to delayed passengers and quickly issue refunds to customers who don’t want to rebook later on the flight.
“No one should be stuck in an airport overnight or waiting for hours to speak with a customer service agent,” Buttigieg said. He also vowed to help Delta passengers by enforcing air travel Consumer Protection Rules.
Delta has canceled more than 5,500 flights since the outage began early Friday, with at least 700 canceled on Monday, according to flight data provider Syria. Delta and its regional subsidiaries accounted for two-thirds of all cancellations worldwide on Monday, including almost all in the United States.
United Airlines was the next worst performer since the strike began, canceling nearly 1,500 flights. However, United canceled only 17 Monday flights late in the morning.
Other airlines affected by the first round of groundings were also mostly back to normal operations by Monday. These include American Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Allegiant Air.
Delta CEO Bastian said in a message to customers on Sunday that the airline continues to restore disrupted operations. One of the tools Delta uses to track employees was affected and was unable to process the large number of changes prompted by the outage.
“The technical issue occurred during a busy summer travel weekend when our booking loads exceeded 90%, limiting our re-accommodation capabilities,” Bastian wrote. Loads are the percentage of seats sold on each flight.
Airlines have large, layered technology systems, and crew tracking programs are often in antiquated systems. When the strike began on Friday, it also affected systems used to check in passengers, schedule crews and make pre-flight calculations about aircraft weight and balance, the airlines said. United and American reported intermittent problems communicating with crews in the air, contributing to their decisions. All aircraft will land briefly.
Some airlines, including Southwest and Alaska, do not use CrowdStrike Internet security software An incorrect upgrade to Microsoft Windows triggered the crashes. Those carriers had relatively few cancellations. Delta has more systems running Microsoft Windows than any other airline, aviation experts said.
“The impact of the CrowdStrike IT outage will last for days to come, with canceled vacations lingering on travelers’ minds even longer,” John Grant, senior analyst at travel data provider OAG, said in a blog post. “Events like this highlight the challenges of an industry that relies on external IT systems that may fail again in the future.”
There is Atlanta-based Delta Offered concessions To make it easier for customers to modify trips.
Delta’s meltdown is reminiscent of the December 2022 debacle that caused Southwest Airlines to cancel nearly 17,000 flights over a 15-day stretch. After a federal investigation into Southwest’s compliance with consumer-protection rules, the airline agreed to pay a $35 million fine in part. $140 million settlement with the Department of Transport.
The Aviation industry Texas-based cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike may be the most visible victim of the global technical problems caused by faulty software updates. Microsoft said the flaw affected 8.5 million machines. CrowdStrike says it has deployed a fix, but experts say it could take days or even weeks to fix Every infected computer.
