Delta Computer Outage Causes Sunday Night Chaos

Delta Air Lines is still recovering from a Sunday night systems outage that forced a ground stop on all flights across the country.  

About 170 Delta flights were cancelled on Sunday and about 110 more will be cancelled today. Travel agents or travelers can check on the status of flights on the Delta website or the Fly Delta app.  

Delta has issued a change fee waiver for customers scheduled to travel Sunday and Monday, for rebooking through Feb. 3, and is not accepting any unaccompanied minors scheduled to fly through noon ET today.  

In an early-morning statement, Delta CEO Ed Bastian apologized to flyers whose travel was impacted by the outage. “This type of disruption is not acceptable to the Delta family, which prides itself on reliability and customer service. I also want to thank our employees who are working tirelessly to accommodate our customers,” he said.  

The outage, which started at around 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday and lasted until just after midnight, is the second in five months to ground Delta flights. In August, the airline lost power to its core data center, setting off a chain of events that grounded flights worldwide for three days.

Other airlines have also suffered from computer problems over the past year. In July, Southwest Airline was forced to cancel almost 700 flights after a computer issue brought down its website and check-in systems. Then last month, its website crashed during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. 

In September, a computer in British Airways’ system knocked out check-in kiosks at several major airports. And just last week, United Airlines’ computer systems crashed, cancelling or delaying more than 200 departures over two days.