Delta Airlines canceled 5470 flights between Tuesday and Friday due to a global IT outage, which is quite bigger than the 5370 combined flight ratio that was canceled in 2018 and 2019. The outage had a connection with a flawed update that was issued by the Texas-based cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. This led to an operational disturbance and ruined the plans of many travelers. It is not only an accident in the history of aviation but a downfall of Delta Airlines that needs time to heal and regain travelers’ trust.

From DOT’s Perspective

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has informed everyone that the transportation department will start an investigation where it will be examined whether Delta is following the law and handling the passengers in an appropriate manner or not.

As per the words of Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday

“I’m hearing a lot of things I am very concerned about, including people being on hold for hours and hours trying to get a new flight. People have to sleep on airport floors, even accounts of unaccompanied minors being stranded in airports unable to get on a flight.” He continued and stated that thousands of flights had already been canceled due to this.

A Rush Among Crew And Passengers

The cancellation of flights has messed up the plans of various travelers and left them in undesired situations where they have to sleep in airports and have to wait for a long time to get a flight. Not only passengers but the crew members are also in trouble due to a lack of space to rest and an inability to get placed on flights as Delta cannot locate them on planes.

With the thousands of canceled flights, Delta will not only suffer from loss of money but also have to deal with the loss of reputation that it has earned with a lot of efforts, such as being an on-time performer and providing the best customer service to its passengers. In the earlier days of this month, it has achieved the industry’s best completion factor and tag of on time performers and has operated 39 cancellation-free excellent days. All this is at stake now due to this big loss of flight cancellation.

One of the biggest and most effective results of this loss would be a degradation in the upcoming flight booking. The angry and frustrated customers can look for other options instead of taking the chance of losing money and peace of mind again.

As per Delta CEO ED Bastin, the operations will become normal on Thursday. It has also canceled one flight on Thursday as of 6:30 am ET.

Loss of stuff

Due to the cancellation of flights, a lot of passengers would have lost their luggage at the airport due to the rush. In order to console them, the airline is putting its efforts into finding the luggage on an early basis along with providing them ease through refunds and other upcoming booking options.

In a statement, the airline informed on Wednesday that “the number of misplaced bags continues to be significantly reduced by major initiatives at all Delta hubs to reunite customers with bags, by ground delivery or via operating flight.”

Refunds updates

All the customers whose flights have been canceled or delayed can cancel their travel via Delta.com or the Fly Delta app and can easily receive a refund. From 19 July, 70% of the refunds are already processed through the app. This way, passengers can recover the loss and save the money.

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