Delta Ground Stop Lifted, Cancellations and Delays Continue
by Daniel McCarthy /Delta flight board in Columbus, OH. Photo: Facebook.
A flight stop from Delta Air Lines on Monday morning has been lifted, though flights are still heavily delayed and cancelled around the world.
Fliers were stranded and delayed on Monday when Delta was hit by a system failure because of a power outage that grounded its flights.
The outage occurred at Delta headquarters in Atlanta, GA, at around 2:30 a.m. ET. At 7:00 a.m. Delta sent out a release acknowledging heavy delays, even while its flight status systems, including airport screens, incorrectly showed flights to be on time. Check-in kiosks at airports were also knocked offline, forcing Delta employees to manually check in passengers.
“We apologize to customers who are affected by this issue, and our teams are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible,” Delta said in the statement.
The ground stop was lifted before 9:00 a.m. and departures resumed, though cancellations and delays across the country should still be expected. 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 offering refunds to anyone whose flight has been canceled or significantly delayed. It is also allowing a one-time change to a ticket without fee for any Delta or Delta-coded flight.