Delta: Flight cancellations, delays Tuesday after outage

Arriving flights were not affected.

“These systems – which run everything from flight dispatching to crew scheduling, passenger check-in, airport-departure information displays, ticket sales and frequent-flier programs – gradually have been updated but are still vulnerable, IT experts said”.

Delta says there was a massive shutdown caused by a power outage at its Atlanta base that immobilized its computer systems.

Its main challenge will be to find sufficient seats on planes during the busy summer holiday season for tens of thousands of passengers whose flights were cancelled.

The Memphis cancellations were among 530 flights scrubbed by Delta worldwide on Tuesday, on top of about 1,000 cancellations Monday.

Delta’s CEO has apologized for the inconvenience.

The technical issues that Delta is experiencing has yet to be completely resolved, here are three things you need to know.

Customers who have not been contacted can reach out to Customer Care here to receive a voucher.

While Delta is not required by law to compensate passengers for delays or cancellations, its contract with customers entitles passengers to a full refund for flight cancellations, according to Traveler’s United, a consumer advocacy. By 3 a.m., passengers were getting irate. “I thought there might be a fistfight”.

Although the airline was back online late on Monday, the outages were so widespread that it was forced to deal with the knock-on effects a day later.

“We were able to bring our system back on line and resume flights within a few hours yesterday, but we are still operating in recovery mode”, Delta senior vice president Dave Holtz said on the company’s website Tuesday morning.

A waiver has been issued from Delta for customers traveling on August 8-12.

Apply for the voucher at delta.com/wecare. About 300 flights were canceled on Tuesday morning.

Confusion among passengers on Monday was compounded as Delta’s flight-status updates crashed as well. Instead of staying home or poolside at a hotel until the airline could fix the mess, many passengers learned about the gridlock only after they reached the airport.

West added in the posting that after a surge and a loss of power, some critical systems did not switch over to backup supplies as intended.

Such incidents show that computer and power systems for huge operations like airlines are “as important, or more important, as our bridges and other physical infrastructure that need to be constantly upgraded and maintained”, said Ramnath Chellappa, an Emory University business professor. A second Atlanta flight later in the morning was delayed, according to the airport’s website.