Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, has issued a public apology for the technology issue that caused widespread flight cancellations over the weekend.
On Friday morning, Delta experienced a system outage caused by an issue with an external vendor's technology. This forced the airline to pause operations, resulting in over 3,500 Delta and Delta Connection flights being cancelled through Saturday. While Delta's teams have been working around the clock to recover the systems and restore operations, cancellations continue into Sunday.
The issue impacted the busiest travel weekend of the summer, with Delta's booked flights exceeding 90% capacity. This limited the airline's ability to re-accommodate passengers. Bastian expressed his sincere apologies to all those affected by the disruptions, acknowledging the inconvenience and disruption to their travel plans.
"Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted," Bastian stated.
The specific issue stemmed from a problem with the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is used by a significant number of Delta's applications. In particular, one of their crew tracking tools was affected, hindering its ability to process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown. Delta's teams have been working tirelessly to restore full functionality to the affected systems.
Delta has issued a travel waiver to allow passengers affected by the cancellations to make changes to their itineraries without incurring any fees. Bastian encourages passengers to take advantage of this flexibility if possible. Additionally, the airline is offering meal vouchers, hotel accommodations, and transportation where available to those whose flights were affected. As a gesture of apology, Delta is also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers.
"We will continue to keep you informed via delta.com and the Fly Delta app for the latest information on your itinerary," Bastian stated.
He concluded by thanking Delta's employees for their tireless efforts in restoring operations and supporting passengers during this challenging situation.
"Thank you for your patience as we work through these issues, restore our operation and return to the reliability you expect from Delta," Bastian said.
