Delta Air Lines cancelled over 600 flights on Monday, as the US airline continued to grapple with restoring operations following last week's global cyber outage, despite other airlines recovering from the incident. About 16% of Delta's flights were cancelled by 7am EST, according to FlightAware data, out of approximately 1,100 flights to or from the United States. This disruption has left thousands of Delta passengers stranded across the US, with some resorting to renting cars for long drives, while others face waits of several days for new flights or may cancel their trips entirely.
The Atlanta-based airline is dealing with operational challenges after the outage affected its crew tracking system. Delta has cancelled more than 5,000 flights since Friday. A Delta spokesperson did not respond promptly to a request for comment. The system issues were triggered by a software update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which affected Microsoft customers, including many airlines, on Friday. Although other US airlines have mostly recovered, Delta has struggled to resume normal operations. American Airlines cancelled 1% of its flights on Monday, and United Airlines less than 1%.
Delta shares remained stable in premarket trading on Monday. Delta CEO Ed Bastian stated over the weekend that the CrowdStrike issue impacted its Microsoft Windows systems, disrupting a crucial application. "One of our crew tracking tools was affected and could not process the large number of changes caused by the system shutdown," Bastian informed customers via email. In another message to employees, he assured that Delta would continue to "tactically adjust" schedules to prioritize safety. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discussed the situation with Bastian over the weekend, emphasizing the airline's obligations to customers and the department's regulatory role.
CrowdStrike reported that a significant portion of the 8.5 million affected Microsoft devices were back online.
