US investigating Delta’s flight cancellations, response to tech outage

WASHINGTON, D.C.: U.S. regulators are investigating why Delta Air Lines took much longer to recover from a global technology outage than other airlines and whether how it treated passengers stranded by canceled and delayed flights violated federal rules.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated this week that the regulators would investigate Delta’s response, affecting more than half a million passengers.The airline expects to return to normal operations by the end of the week.

Delta and its partners canceled more than 500 flights on July 23. That was down by more than half the previous day but still accounted for nearly two-thirds of all canceled flights in the United States, according to tracking platform FlightAware.

The faulty update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike late last week affected more than eight million Microsoft computers worldwide and delayed many airlines.

Most of them reduced cancellations to roughly normal levels by the end of the weekend. However, Atlanta-based Delta and its partners have canceled more than 6,500 flights since July 19, far more than any other airline.

At a news conference, Buttigieg said the Transportation Department will examine Delta’s customer service, including “unacceptable” lines for customer service and reports that unaccompanied minors were stranded at airports. He said the department has received more than 3,000 complaints about the airline’s breakdown.

Delta said it was cooperating with the investigation.

Delta’s chief of operations John Laughter said the airline was moving planes, pilots and flight attendants “to where they need to be so we can return to normal operations by the end of the week.”

The collapse at Delta has been stunning for an outfit that was widely viewed as the best big U.S. airline – the most profitable before and after the pandemic and the best run. In recent years, Delta has almost always ranked near the top among all U.S. carriers for on-time performance.

Delta appears to rely more than other airlines on systems that run on Microsoft Windows. The airline said that over half of its technology systems are Windows-based and include a crucial tool for scheduling pilots and flight attendants. That system could not keep up with the many changes triggered by the outage.

Delta said late on July 23 that it reduced a backlog of “issues” in the crew-scheduling system by 75 percent over the last 36 hours, and the airline was also making progress in returning lost bags to their owners.

Like Delta, Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 17,000 flights over 15 days in December 2022. A Transportation Department investigation ended with Southwest agreeing to pay a US$35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement.

Southwest blamed its breakdown on a winter storm, but while other airlines recovered in a few days, Southwest did not. Rivals such as American recovered quickly, and United Airlines, the second-worst at cancellations, was back on track by July 22.