Delta flight cancellations approach 300 after IT systems outage

Having cancelled 170 flights on Sunday, Delta Airlines Inc. had to cancel approximately 110 further flights this Monday, with additional cancellations possible, following a computer breakdown which left passengers stranded across the U.S. Today (Monday), FlightAware indicated that 180 Delta flights had been delayed as of 10.36 a.m. local time
In a statement, Ed Bastian, Delta CEO, said that: “I want to apologize to all of our customers who have been impacted by this frustrating situation. This type of disruption is not acceptable.”
The timing could not have been worse as it happened at a time when airlines were struggling to comply with president Trump’s new travel restrictions which now block travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations.
According to Delta, essential information-technology systems crashed at 6.30pm local time Sunday, though they were fully restored shortly before midday, Monday. The carrier has waived change fees for customers scheduled to travel on Sunday and Monday, for rebooking by Feb. 3.
Sunday’s outage was the second incident involving computers in a week which forced a major U.S. domestic carrier to ground flights, after United Continental Holdings suffered a computer failure, though it’s two-an-a-half hour outage saw fewer flight cancellations.
In August last year United suffered another outage as a power-control module at the carrier’s Atlanta command center caught fire, cutting power to computers, which is believed to have cost Delta over US$100 million in sales.