US investigates Atlanta-based Delta’s flight cancellations, its hesitant response to global tech outage – WABE

This story was updated Tuesday at 12:49 p.m.

U.S. regulators are investigating how Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is handling passengers affected by canceled and delayed flights as the airline struggles to recover from a global technology outage.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced Tuesday on the social network X that he was investigating Delta “to ensure the airline complies with the law and takes care of its passengers during the ongoing widespread disruptions.”

“Every airline passenger has the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is respected,” Buttigieg said.

Delta canceled more than 400 flights as of mid-morning Tuesday, accounting for about two-thirds of all cancellations in the United States, according to FlightAware.

The outage began Thursday night and lasted until Friday morning, following a faulty software upgrade by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike on more than 8 million Microsoft computers worldwide.

The carrier has canceled more than 7,000 flights since the outage began, far more than any other airline, according to figures from FlightAware and travel data provider Cirium.

Delta said it is cooperating with the investigation.

“We remain fully focused on restoring our operations after a flawed Windows update from cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike rendered computer systems unusable around the world,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement. “Across our operations, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for customers impacted by delays and cancellations and to restore the reliable, on-time service they expect from Delta.”

Delta said more than half of its technology systems run on Microsoft Windows, including a tool the airline uses to schedule pilots and flight attendants. That system couldn’t keep up with the high number of changes caused by the outage.

The Transportation Department said it launched the investigation after seeing ongoing disruptions to Delta flights and “reports of troubling customer service failures.”

The department said the investigation will evolve as it “addresses the large number of consumer complaints we have already received against Delta.”

Delta customers who contacted the airline’s customer service had to wait hours for a response. Here’s a message Delta sent to a customer in metro Atlanta on Sunday, telling him the wait had lasted more than eight hours.

Investigators will likely focus on whether Delta complies with federal rules and offers prompt refunds to passengers whose flights are canceled or significantly delayed. In a text provided to The Associated Press, a Delta passenger whose flight was canceled Saturday was told: “If you prefer not to rebook your trip, the value of your ticket will automatically be available as an electronic credit that can be used toward a future Delta ticket.”

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

Southwest Airlines blamed its outage on a winter storm, but other airlines were able to recover within days, but Southwest Airlines did not. Consumer advocates are seeing the same trend with Delta this month: The airline continues to blame CrowdStrike for the outage, while competitors like American Airlines are recovering quickly, and even United Airlines, the second-worst airline for cancellations, was back on track Monday.

“It’s not what causes the problem, it’s how you deal with it. That’s the test of an airline,” said William McGee, a former air traffic controller and consumer advocate with the American Economic Liberties Project, a group critical of big business.

WABE News contributed to this report.