Five days ago a Crowdstrike issue caused widespread outages and interruptions for organizations across the globe. The impacts to the aviation and hotel space were severe but everyone slowly got their operations back online throughout the course of the weekend, except for one.
Delta Air Lines is currently on day five of a massive operational meltdown that has snarled their network and left passengers stranded for days. The airline has also had difficulty tracking down aircraft and crew as it works to dig out of its operational hole.
While a full internal investigation will no doubt occur once the airline is back up and running smoothly, glimmers of hope are finally starting to appear. Though passengers are still feeling significant disruptions, things behind the scenes are starting to improve. As reported by JonNYC, the airline’s crew tracking queue went below 1,000 this morning for the first time since Friday.
DL: Crew Tracking queue is below 1,000 for first time since Friday.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 23, 2024
The clearest sign to most travelers that things are getting better are the number of cancellations. Delta began the day with over 400 cancellations before 8:00a but has added less than 100 additional cancellations throughout the remainder of the day. Currently, according to FlightAware, Delta has cancelled 471 total flights today.
Delays have climbed steadily throughout the day and currently stand at 1,284, or 36% of total flights. While the number is high, the average delay time has been dropping throughout the day.
Department of Transportation Opens Investigation into Delta’s Disruptions
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced today, via a message on X/Twitter, that the United States Department of Transportation is opening an investigation into Delta. As part of his tweet (I think they’re still called that) he asked that passengers attempt to resolve issues directly with the airline but, a link to the Air Travel Service Complaint or Comment form was attached for passengers who believe Delta hasn’t complied with passenger protection requirements.
.@USDOT has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) July 23, 2024
All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld.
Secretary Buttigieg and the current administration in The White House have shown a willingness to levy financial penalties on airlines in situations like this. Southwest was forced to pay a $140 million fine as a result of it’s 2022 holiday meltdown. The penalty was 30 times larger than any previous DOT penalty for consumer protection violations and was in addition to the $600 million in refunds and reimbursements the airline provided passengers.
Delta’s Reputation Has Taken a Massive Hit
It’s safe to say this will be an expensive incident for Delta in terms of financial and reputational damage. The airline has long charged a premium for its services and was seen as the clear leader in passenger experience with some frequent flyers even nicknaming it the “On-Time Machine.”
That reputation is as destroyed as the airline’s flight schedule over the past five days, where it cancelled more flights in a three-day stretch than it did in 2018 and 2019 combined.
You’d think that the airline would be working to repair, or at least mitigate its reputational damage but it appears to be digging in. First, we haven’t seen an update from the airline in more the 24 hours and Delta CEO Ed Bastian hasn’t released a statement in two days.
The statement we did receive from Delta’s CEO took no responsibility for the failures after the outage and, instead continues to blame Crowdstrike for the lingering issues. In the most recent message from the airline, released 27 hours ago, Delta stated that their systems were disrupted “after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems of companies across the globe inoperable.”
While Crowdstrike may have been the nail that punctured the tire, Delta left the house without a working spare.
Calls Growing For Delta CEOs Resignation
As passengers get increasingly more frustrated, the calls have begun for CEO Ed Bastian to resign. Then these comments first bubbled up a couple of days ago, I shrugged them off but after seeing how the airline has handled the last 48 hours, I’m beginning to think he may actually be gone.
Instead of taking the Southwest approach where the airline proactively offered travellers affected by its 2022 holiday meltdown 25,000 Rapid Rewards points and offered to reimburse passengers for tickets booked on other airlines, Delta is taking an extremely hardline stance. The airline is telling passengers that they will not cover travel booked on other carriers and is reimbursing them for the expenses required by law and nothing else. They may throw a paltry amount of SkyMiles your way.
Only offered is 10k (what a joke). No idea how Ed Bastian still has a job
— J. Kiker (@jakekiker) July 23, 2024
What Comes Next?
Today was objectively the best day for Delta since the operation collapsed in spectacular fashion on Friday. While there are still many travelers stranded and displaced, the number of flight cancellations has held steady throughout the day and the delay times appear to be dropping.
I’m still seeing significant IT issues for travelers with people unable to check in for flights, systems timing out, and support staff overwhelmed. My in-laws are still trying to make it home from Detroit to Texas where they have been stuck since Saturday. Delta has rebooked them twice, first on another cancelled flight, and now on one scheduled for tomorrow.
Unfortunately for them, they’re unable to check in online and when they spoke with an agent at the airport a day before the flight, he could see the reservation but can’t check them in. This means another long wait in the queue to get boarding passes for their flight tomorrow which may not even operate.
To quote my mother in law, “I officially hate Delta now.” Many other passengers feel the same way and the airline certainly has an uphill battle to try and regain its position as America’s most premium airline.
UPDATE: Delta Finally Issues a Statement on the Current State of Operations
After the original publication of this article, Delta finally issued its first public statement in roughly 28 hours. As noted in the release, this was originally shared with Delta employees internally before being released to the public. The full text of the statement is below:
The past few days have been extraordinarily difficult across Delta following the CrowdStrike outage on Friday morning. The efforts of Delta people have been nothing short of heroic and we’re moving firmly in the right direction.
“Teams are working around the clock to reposition planes and people to where they need to be so we can return to normal operations by the end of the week,” said John Laughter, Chief of Operations and President, Delta TechOps. “We’re seeing solid day-over-day progress across operating metrics that the entire team should be proud of.”
Some highlights of the team’s efforts to return the Delta operation to normal include:
- Mainline cancellations are trending downward with 50% fewer cancels day over day.
- Atlanta flight volumes continue to return to scale; we’re operating 43% more throughput than yesterday.
- Open trips for pilots started today down nearly 50% day over day; both pilot and flight attendant open time levels are starting to return to normal.
- Our crew tracking system queue that builds trip rotations contained a backlog of issues that is down 75% in the last 36 hours, and well on its way to normal.
- We’re making progress working through misplaced bags and leveraging our delivery partners to reunite customers with their belongings.
“With our collective focus, we will continue this momentum to be in good shape ahead of the busy weekend,” Laughter said.
Across the operation, Delta people on the ground, in the air and behind the scenes are working tirelessly to care for customers and each other. Through it all, we’re encouraged by the countless compliments we’re receiving from customers who are grateful for the level of care Delta people continue to deliver, even during this challenging time. Thanks to the 1,500 volunteers who’ve stepped up to support our teams through Behind the Wings shifts across the system.
“We know this hasn’t been easy. We have every confidence that Delta will quickly reclaim its position as the industry-leading, on-time machine that our customers have come to expect from us,” said Allison Ausband, Chief Customer Experience Officer. “In the meantime, keep supporting each other and our customers, and we’ll continue to keep you informed every step of the way.”
While it was nice to get something from the airline more than a day after its last update, there isn’t much of substance for passengers affected by the flight. The statement provides no additional information on expense reimbursements, additional flight waiver dates, or updates on what to expect over the next few days.
This statement only states what aviation and travel bloggers have been reporting on throughout the day. The operation is beginning to stabilize but the airline’s reputational damage and disruption for its customers still isn’t being addressed by Delta leadership.
Summary
As we approach the end of the fifth day of the Delta meltdown we’re starting to see signs that the operation is improving. While things likely won’t be back to normal until the weekend, mitigating cancellations today was a key step in getting things back on track. Unfortunately for the airline, their reputational damage amongst frequent flyers and casual travelers will take much longer to recover.
It will be interesting to see what Delta does in the coming weeks and months to try and regain some goodwill. DOn’t hold your breath in that since we haven’t heard from the airline or gotten a statement from the CEO in more than a day.
If you’re still attempting to travel or have traveled with Delta during the meltdown I’m interested to hear your experiences and what, if any, compensation you’ve been offered.
All businesses over the course of time have to deal with adverse conditions, whether those conditions come from external forces or are the product of internal decisions. When bad things happen Americans have become too prone to demanding that blame be assigned, but blame and accountability are not the same thing. Blame is actually a cop out to avoid accountability. Accountability demands that the failure be acknowledged, that the underlying cause be identified, and that mitigation and compensation be performed. From the article, it appears that Delta is attempting to avoid accountability by blaming Crowdstrike, but the worse implication is that the airline has reached the zenith of its current customer investment/profit reaping cycle and is now on the downhill side of customer service. I hope that’s not true and that Delta continues to build on its award winning brand. Time will tell.
The lack of accountability is astonishing. The most recent statement released by the airline is still referring to this as a result of the “CrowdStrike outage on Friday morning.”
We were canceled for our return home from
Las Vegas Saturday – rescheduled for Monday. Checked in, checked bags at 11am for 3pm flight. Canceled at 2pm. Rescheduled for Wednesday night, the dreaded red-eye. We took it. Queued 2 hours with baggage office to request our luggage back (2pm yesterday). As of now (9pm Tuesday), no bags. All baggage tracking says is “checked in”. We caved and rebooked with American to leave Thursday – no idea when / if we’ll see our bags again. I’m a recurring diamond medallion member and never have I experienced such poor customer service from delta before. Appalling.
If you’re a Diamond you may have some luck getting your American flights reimbursed. Everything I’ve seen states that they won’t reimburse travel on other carriers. There’s a bigger PR nightmare brewing which may force their hand though. Save all those receipts.
Thanks – I will. Right now I just want to get home and get my bags!
Hope they arrive quickly!
I wonder if this opens the door to an activist hedge fund to try something like what they have with wn. That will be what bastian deserves. Won’t help passengers, but will hurt him.
Remember that United pushes them to “be more Luxurious!”