Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) faced significant challenges on Sunday in restoring normal operations following last week’s global cyber outage, leading to the cancellation of an additional 1,250 flights, on top of the 3,500 previously canceled.
This disruption has left thousands of Delta passengers stranded across the United States. Some travelers have had to rent cars and drive hundreds of miles, while others face days-long waits for new flights or have had to cancel their trips entirely.
The Atlanta-based airline, which canceled a third of its schedule and delayed another 1,700 flights (44% of its operations), according to FlightAware, is grappling with operational issues stemming from the outage affecting its crew tracking system.
Delta has not provided a timeline for when normal operations will resume and has already canceled another 305 flights for Monday, bringing the total number of canceled flights since Friday to over 5,000.
The issue was triggered by a software update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), which caused system problems for Microsoft (MSFT.O) customers, including several airlines, on Friday.
While other U.S. airlines have largely recovered, Delta continues to struggle. United Airlines (UAL.O) canceled 9% (266 flights) of its Sunday schedule, the second highest among carriers.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian stated that the problem impacted its Microsoft Windows systems, disrupting a critical application.
“In particular one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown,” Bastian told customers in an email.
In a separate note, he told employees that Delta would continue to “tactically adjust” schedules to ensure safety.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with Bastian, according to an official, reminding him of the carrier’s responsibilities to customers and the department’s enforcement role.
“I will ensure that our department supports Delta passengers by enforcing all applicable passenger protections,” Buttigieg said in a statement to Reuters, adding that the department had received hundreds of complaints.
“No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours.”
CrowdStrike said a significant number of the 8.5 million affected Microsoft devices were back online.
