Delta Air Lines Scraps 300 More Flights
by Daniel McCarthy /Photo:
The trouble from a six-hour system outage in Atlanta on Monday is still causing problems nationwide for Delta Air Lines.
The carrier had to cancel almost 1,000 flights on Monday and said that 300 more will be canceled on Tuesday because it is still in “recovery mode.” Delta said it hopes the cancellations will give it time to “to return our operation to normal reliability,” said senior vice president of its operations and customer center Dave Holtz.
Delta is advising any customers traveling on Tuesday to check flight status on the Delta website or the Fly Delta App. It is offering anyone who experiences a delay of more than three hours or a cancelled flight a $200 travel voucher.
The airline also provided overnight accommodations to anyone who had to stay overnight at an airport because of cancelled or heavily delayed flights.
“We are sorry for what many of our customers have experienced over the past 24 hours, including those who remain at airports and continue waiting for their flights,” Holtz said.
The problems started when a power outage in Atlanta, where Delta is headquartered, knocked the airline’s systems offline at around 2:30 a.m. on Monday morning. Delta grounded flights across the country.
The ground stop was lifted before 9:00 a.m. on Monday and departures resumed, but cancellations and delays continued across the country. For example, one 6:30 a.m. flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York began boarding at 9:30 a.m.
Delta has issued a travel waiver for people traveling between August 8 and 12, and is allowing a one-time change to a ticket without fee for any Delta or Delta-coded flight.