Delta faces federal investigation as it scraps hundreds of flights for fifth straight day
Delta Air Lines is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection as the airline scraps hundreds of flights for a fifth straight day after a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike took down Microsoft systems around the world.
While the outage impacted many businesses, from retailers to airlines, most have regained their footing and resumed regular operations. As of 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Delta had scratched 478 flights, far exceeding cancellations by any other U.S. airline, and delayed another 1,440 flights, according to data from flight tracker FlightAware.
In a statement sent to CBS News on Tuesday, the Transportation Department said it "is investigating Delta Air Lines following continued widespread flight disruptions and reports of concerning customer service failures."
Delta said in a statement it has received the agency's notice of investigation, adding that it "is fully cooperating."
"We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike's faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable," the company said.
"I'm so upset"
The airline is continuing to struggle with the aftermath of the outage, causing frustrations for travelers trying to get home or go on vacation. Some have opted to pay for pricey tickets on other airlines in order to get to their destinations, according to CBS Boston.
In a Monday statement, Delta said its employees are "working 24/7" to restore its operations, but CEO Ed Bastian also said it would take "another couple days" before "the worst is clearly behind us." Other carriers have returned to nearly normal levels of service disruptions, intensifying the glare on Delta's relatively weaker response to the outage that hit airlines, hospitals and businesses around the world.
"I'm so exhausted, I'm so upset — not because of the outage, but the lack of transparency," Charity Mutasa, who was delayed by a day trying to get a Delta flight back to Boston from Dallas, told CBS Boston.
Another traveler, Matthew Dardet, told CBS Boston he ended up paying three times his original Delta ticket price for a seat on JetBlue after his flight to Florida was canceled multiple times. He was traveling to make it to his grandfather's 82nd birthday.
Where to get help with refunds, lost bags
Delta said in a statement that it's extended a travel waiver for all customers with trips booked from July 19 to July 28, which allows them to make a one-time change to their itinerary free of charge. Fare differences are waived if the rebooked flight takes place on or before August 4 and at the same cabin service level.
Customers also have a right to get a refund upon request, according to Delta. Travelers can request an e-credit for the unflown part of their trip or a refund at delta.com/refund.
Meanwhile, the airline said it is also working to "reunite bags with customers" and that it has set up what it described as an internal Baggage Command Center in Atlanta, where it has the highest number of lost bags. It said customers can visit their local Baggage Service Office and file a claim, or submit one online at Delta.com or via the phone at (800) 325-8224.
"Delta continues to leverage as many solutions as possible to ensure customers' bags are returned to them as soon as possible," the airline said in an email.
Delta has canceled more than 5,500 flights since the outage started early Friday morning, including more than 700 flights on Monday, according to aviation-data provider Cirium. Delta and its regional affiliates accounted for about two-thirds of all cancellations worldwide Monday, including nearly all aborted flights in the United States.
United Airlines was the next-worst performer since the onset of the outage, canceling nearly 1,500 flights. United canceled 47 flights on Tuesday, FlightAware's data shows.
Focus on crew-tracking software
One of the tools Delta uses to track crews was affected and could not process the high number of changes triggered by the outage.
"The technology issue occurred on the busiest travel weekend of the summer, with our booked loads exceeding 90%, limiting our re-accommodation capabilities," Bastian wrote. Loads are the percentage of sold seats on each flight.
Meanwhile, the failures from CrowdStrike and Delta are drawing the attention of regulators and lawmakers. U.S. House leaders are calling on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify to Congress about the cybersecurity company's role in the tech outage.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D.-Wash., chair of the Senate committee that oversees airlines, said in a letter to Bastian that she is "concerned" that Delta is not complying with passenger rights contained in a law that Congress passed in May.
"While the technology outage was clearly not caused by Delta or any airline, I am nevertheless concerned that Delta is failing to meet the moment and adequately protect the needs of passengers," Cantwell wrote.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his agency had received "hundreds of complaints" about Delta and that he expects the airline to provide hotels and meals for travelers who are delayed, as well as to issue prompt refunds to those customers who don't want to be rebooked on a later flight.
"No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to a customer service agent," Buttigieg said. He vowed to help Delta passengers by enforcing air travel consumer-protection rules.
"We're concerned about how the outcomes for passengers on Delta seem to be so different from what we're seeing across the airline industry," Buttigieg told CBS News. "…Stories about people in lines of more than a hundred people with just one customer service agent serving them at an airport, that's completely unacceptable."
Southwest parallels
Delta's meltdown mirrors that the mass disruptions that hit Southwest Airlines in December 2022, when the discount carrier canceled nearly 17,000 flights over 15 days. A Transportation Department investigation ended with Southwest agreeing to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement.
Consumer advocates see the same pattern with Delta this month — the airline continues to blame the CrowdStrike outage while rivals such as American recovered quickly. Even United Airlines, the second-worst at cancellations, was back on track Monday.
"It's not about the thing that caused the problem, it's about how you recover from the problem. That's the test of an airline," said William McGee, a former aircraft dispatcher who is a consumer advocate at the American Economic Liberties Project, a group critical of large corporations.
—With reporting by the Associated Press.
