Delta Air Lines has been a mess since Friday. CrowdStrike brought down systems all over the world, but other airlines recovered while Delta continues to be an operational disaster. Airline leadership is explaining internally what happened.
So far today Delta has cancelled more than 21% of its flights. 34% of its flights are delayed, so over half of the airline’s operations remain encumbered. Delta subsidiary Endeavor Air is still cancelling about 10% of flights. In contrast, American Airlines has so far cancelled 1% of flights today and United less than 1%.
The airline’s public statements have been little but finger pointing and self-congratulations despite the misery they’re putting both employees and customers through. It’s nearly as bad as Southwest was in December 2022, yet they aren’t getting the same level of recriminations and aren’t as generous with customers as Southwest was.
What it’s like out there:
My buddy is there
He sent me this photo
said he’s 97% sure this lady just peed on floor while waiting 7 hours in line for customer service pic.twitter.com/m5NotJjjTK— Alan K (@itsalankline) July 22, 2024
The big airlines were affected. Delta’s competitors recovered, Delta did not. They’re finally sharing details of what’s happened with their employees. Aviation watchdog JonNYC leaked a transcript.
CEO Ed Bastian begins by thanking employees for the toll this has taken on them. Remember, they are stranded like customers are. They also have to deal with customers. And Delta has cancelled more than twice as many flights since Friday as they did in all of 2019.
In the transcript, Bastian comes off as smug – blowing off Transportation Secretary Buttigieg’s imploring him to honor the airline’s obligations to customers: “I said,, you do not need to remind me, I know, because we do our very best, particularly in tough times taking care of customers.”
Bastian then concedes it is going to take days to recover from this still, “hopefully Tuesday and Wednesday will be that much better again and get ready for a real good weekend” even the cheerleading CEO would advise not to fly Delta this week.
Getting past the boilerplate, though, Bastian turned remarks over to the airline’s Chief Information Officer who started off saying ‘look, everybody uses CrowdStrike’ implying this is not their fault. But other airlines recovered, and Delta didn’t! Delta has a history of taking much longer to recover operations than peers, even though in normal times they operate somewhat more reliably.
- They had to deal with “over 1,500…key systems…60% of our most critical applications that run the airline are Microsoft Windows-based, which means all of them were down”
- But they got them back up in just “a few hours” in fact in time for 7:30 a.m. operations on Friday in Atlanta.
- The problem is that their systems need to talk to each other, and the data transfer was completely overloaded. Most applications came back online, but the two key systems that continued to fail were “one that allows our Atlanta tower to really holistically manage our biggest hub in terms of gating arrivals, departures” (but that came back in a few hours) and “our crew tracking application.”
- Delta couldn’t track crew or assign them to work flights.
someone says this is DL trying to locate it's folks pic.twitter.com/WmZnSci2SH
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 22, 2024
Delta is literally announcing over the loud speaker “if there are any pilots that can fly xyz plane, please come to the front”
What the hell is going on?
— Multifamily Madness (@MultifamilyMad) July 22, 2024
- Crew tracking has been running five parallel systems to catch up but “it’s a very dynamic environment.”
- They haven’t known how to “resync” and “reset” to “bring synchronization between where you are and the schedule.” Southwest Airlines shut down their entire operation during Christmsa 2022, and rebuilt their schedules and assignments manually when their computers couldn’t do it (which is why they kept cancelling half their flights each day – it was too big of a task to accomplish manually with their staffing).
Their CIO expects Delta to “get to a better place by the end of the week.”
Here’s the full discussion:
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 22, 2024
Delta once said that only weather would ever cause Delta to cancel flights. One wonders whether the loss of their operations guru Gil West during the pandemic (now Hertz CEO), who said that, continues to have consequences and how much layoffs in IT this past fall may have come back to hurt them as well.
Tom,
outside of this weekend, DL’s operation runs far better than its competitors.
If you consistently find yourself in the situations you say you are in, you have EXTRAORDINARILY bad luck.
We all get that Gary makes his living based on anecdotal stories but in an industry that serves 1 billion customers per year, anecdotes mean precisely nothing.
H2,
so how much more was Boeing supposed to have spent to avoid the MAX mess or the Starliner?
How much did the Secret Service not spend that could have prevented an assassination attempt?
Did it occur to you that the reason might have nothing to do with money but rather incorrect assumptions?
If DL assumed that a trusted Microsoft vendor would never pass bad code, then they were wrong.
That doesn’t mean that someone didn’t really create a foolproof system but that is not because they didn’t spend money or didn’t recognize potential threats.
Jim,
it is incumbent on YOU to do research before you run your mouth making accusations. Think it through what that means for YOU if we all worked the way you want to operate.
Kev,
as much as you might want to think having C folks out on the front line, I suspect that most employees would far rather NOT have them around in a crisis if they didn’t know how to a frontline job.
And you also fail to appreciate what it takes behind the scenes to extricate DL from this mess – including coordinating information and making decisions – and talking to Mayor Pete and the media.
and in case you all missed it, the meltdown that the country is talking about is with the blue team in DC.
I get that this is an aviation chat site but a little perspective at what is going on in the rest of the world would do wonders to putting this all – just like every other airline story – in the proper perspective.
It’s funny how many people here don’t realize that Tim Dunn is actually autistic. This isn’t meant to be an insult or a joke, it’s just an observation that I am quite certain is true. Nobody else would still be spending 24 hours a day rage posting at the defense of a freaking airline (seriously, who cares that much about a single airline?). A normal person would have gone silent, or just admitted that Delta’s in a tough spot at the moment. Instead he’s flailing trying to respond to every single comment on this thread and other blogs.
I doubt he flies very often at all, just as I doubt he spends much time outside of his basement where he has VFTW and OMAAT live feeds going. His only raison d’être is to comment on other men’s blogs.
Buttigieg’s a very smart guy and a pretty quick study. And it showed well enough also at his time while working for the military and for McKinsey. That said, a smart guy ought to know that being US DOT Secretary is typically a dead-end in terms of a career in politics. But he didn’t want to miss his opportunity to step up directly from the local government level to the national playing field.
His business process knowledge is just fine — it would be hard to be worse than that old “lock her up”-chanting chaos-inducing dude who had multiple companies go bankrupt and used company funds to pay for female adult entertainment industry participants to keep quiet about getting up close and personal with his “private parts”.
People complaining about Buttigieg’s qualifications to be DOT Secretary tend to be the same people who support the re-election of the failed NY real estate business “tycoon” who would have been better off putting his inherited money into a brain-dead major index fund instead of showing himself as the poster-child of affirmative action for clowns born to the crooked rich.
Glad to see Tim Dunn getting his ass handed to him yet again on another website. Loser.
@Tim Dunn
Way to compare apples to kumquats. The Boeing debacle cost the company 20 billion dollars. So anything south of that would have made them money. There CEO is a lame duck. The head of the secret service got a nasty grilling today and will be gone shortly. Let’s see who’s head rolls for this mess at Delta. Want to bet nothing.
This is the beginning of the end of Bastain’s tenure as CEO. Not even sure why the CTO is still employed, maybe he can call his peers at AA and United for help
You can’t brag about quarterly profits of $1B and then abandon your entire customer base during an operational meltdown with little or no communications (other than deflect). This is costing Delta at least $100M+ per day…
Tim: “outside of this weekend, DL’s operation runs far better than its competitors.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
H2,
you don’t grasp that all the money in the world can’t fix problems if there are wrong assumptions made or something that was perceived to be impossible to happened happened.
The assumption also that has repeatedly been made is that airline X did better at recovery than DL because they had spent more or any other reasons… and yet we don’t know at all the architecture involved in ANY of their systems.
LUV did not use CrowdStrike but based on how quickly AA came back, I doubt very seriously they used it much.
and as for the charges that DL hasn’t invested in IT, I think alot of people don’t realize that DL is the ONLY US airline that runs its own internal CRS. Thus, it is very possible that some of the fixes that other airlines were able to use were not available to DL.
I do not know what went wrong or why it has taken so long but I do know that money does not fix every problem and that way too many people are making assumptions and statements that are simply not based in reality.
People might as well compare DL’s long term cancellation rates to Pan Am’s or Eastern’s. DL’s competition, operating in the same environment with the same outside influences, seems to have effectively recovered in a couple of days. And several of them, through foresight or luck, weren’t even affected. DL mgmt may argue it was luck, but then they can’t gloat the next time a line of thunderstorms sits over DFW. DL is looking at a week+, and will probably be forced to lay out hundreds of millions of $ in compensation. There no tube of lipstick big enough for this pig.
Capt.
if Scott Kirby can get on a private jet from Teterboro while UA’s operation melted down and spread across UA’s system which took a week plus to bring back online, and he survived, it is more than a little dramatic to say that Bastian’s head is at stake when he actually stayed in Atlanta.
again, the hypocrisy and rage at Delta is as notable as the lack of yours and others memory of what has happened at other airlines.
and I just talked to a friend that owns an IT company as well as a retired exec from Microsoft and he said that CrowdStrike broke the cardinal rule of IT in mass-releasing code
oh, and for Gary, AA’s on-time right now is 47% delayed flights while DL is at 45%.
DL might be melting down but if 47% delayed flights is acceptable at AA even when they are not melting down- and they frequently run that much worse of an operation as other airlines – then AA really should just cancel their flights.
With that many flights late, there are massive misconnects all over AA’s system.
But as long as you are so busy trying to hang Delta, you clearly won’t notice what is going on with American.
Tim Dunn “no one understands that Delta is the ONLY airline to make bad decision X or that they just delay flights for hours on end to save their cancellation rate ranking normally…”
Why can’t you just take the L that your beloved airline has finally screwed up big time and it’s hurt hundreds of thousands of passengers and employees?
No one is saying that the other airlines are perfect, everyone is just sick of you saying DL is, when it most evidently is not. Everyone is also sick of DL charging like they are perfect when they are most definitely not. They have very much proven they do not deserve the ticket premium they demand…
Andy,
it is only in your jaundiced reading of what I have written that you can’t see that DL made some wrong decisions somewhere.
But you also are so ready to hang DL that you can’t possibly consider that maybe there were factors related to THIS EVENT that DL simply could not have overcome because they were far more exposed to CrowdStrike than other airlines.
You and others childishly equate all airline IT as being the same. It most certainly is not.
And, in case you missed – which you clearly did – there could very well be major lawsuits against crowdstrike for its negligence – and Microsoft could be holding the bag for giving CRWD such privileged access to MS operating systems.
and you also are incapable of accepting that other airlines REGULARLY make day in and day out mistakes in handling routine stuff like weather that has resulted in far more cancellations and delays than DL.
Ride off on your high horse if it makes you feel better.
Real customers can figure out what is at stake and how the industry really works and by whom.
Been on hold with delta twice today for a total of 7 hours. No luck. Unsuccessfully, tried delta.com site 3 times to get miles and money refunded from a flight Delta cancelled. We were told at airport they could not rebook Sunday flight until Thursday. CEO has letter on delta site that says they are offering travel vouchers. Had to book with another airline to get home. How do I speak with anyone? Has anyone been able to talk with a human?
@Tim: how are you making the assertion that Delta was “ far more exposed to CrowdStrike than other airlines”? That’s not self evident at all. Are you merely grasping at straws to cover for the poor outcome (which you’re also conveniently handwaving away)?
It’s Tim Dunn’s world: heads, he wins; tails, Delta’s great.
@Tim Dunn
—-outside of this weekend, DL’s operation runs far better than its competitors.—
Hilariously false. BOTH the “we lost power onsite but tried to blame Georgia Power” incidents left OVER 50,000 passengers stranded A FULL WEEK LATER… And there ain’t enough hotel rooms in Fulton County to soak up all those worthless eff’ing Delta vouchers.
–If you consistently find yourself in the situations you say you are in, you have EXTRAORDINARILY bad luck.—
Funny? Since I was bi-coastal LA-to-DC for an agency job? I could fly anybody… As soon as I fired the lying losers of The Deep South? Suddenly my luck improved. 1K United. Exec/Platinum on AA.
As mentioned, I flew roughly the same miles a couple of years on SWA as I did on DL– Southwest’s worst performance was a 25 minute delayed arrival. DL’s a “three times in a month I’m stuck in effing Hartsfield Gulag overnight”. Enough. Yes, there was weather all three times. So? Once Delta decides to meltdown? Like all the ways the practice Lose-Lose on a daily basis?
Avoid ATL. Avoid Delta. And, generally, avoid anybody who has a preference for Delta– since they clearly make bad decisions and probably paid 10X too much for a credit card.
–We all get that Gary makes his living based on anecdotal stories but in an industry that serves 1 billion customers per year, anecdotes mean precisely nothing.—
Service businesses are strictly about personal experiences. And, like the 200,000 folks stranded by DL’s incompetence tonight? Those personal experiences in IROPS are horrific.
I mean Spirit is bad for stranding, but Delta somehow manages to be even worse in Irregular Operations.
@Dan
It is pretty funny (assuming he’s not a bot. If he is? Jokes on us, I guess) that Timmy Dunn claims “personal experiences with a company’s product and services” have no meaning. I mean that’s just stooopid, right? Product experience is the CORE of brand.
I mean Delta has a certain sort of point that people ARE motivated by low fares, so you can probably screw ’em once in awhile and get them back with a bargain fare later. Maybe. But, I guarantee you spend a few days stranded at ATL and you WILL remember how badly they treated you. Spirit can get by with this crappp ( Although I had one too many canceled flights and fired them forever. Never again.) because they sell on price. It’s all they got.
OTOH, Tim arguing that it doesn’t matter than Delta’s stranded 200,000 people with no food, room or re-acccommodations? Huh? This company supposedly runs a tighter ship with a better brand and they are all over the news (again) for screwing the pooch this badly? I dunno.
If you claim you run a Premium product? You better act PREMIUM when things turn to ca-ca.
At the end of the day, Delta had a Premium Melt Down.
@Tim Dunn – you wrote “it is incumbent on YOU to do research before you run your mouth making accusations. Think it through what that means for YOU if we all worked the way you want to operate.” I truly don’t know what you are trying to say. I didn’t make any accusations – I just copied and pasted your own words. I literally can’t respond because I don’t know what the point of your comment barf is.
I do agree with what you said in 2021. Airlines do have a responsibility to fly their schedules.
@Tom Dually—
“Service businesses are strictly about personal experiences.”
100%
The “personal experience” is what DL’s entire brand narrative is built on.
These Delta posts are pure gold for Gary.
@Cericrushmore. That’s the point being midud in the big picture. This is an aviation blog, so, no complaint here. Neither Apple nor Google were forced (or have been forced yet) to give competitors access to their OS in a way that Microsoft was by the EU. The EU and their fans in the US are going to screw up our technological future while playing politics.
Bastian should be fired faster than the DEI secret service lady (and she is finally gone). This was not some random black swan event – even a child could foresee an IT crash (it happens to everyone) – the cause does not matter – and the scheduling chaos was predictable, esp after the WN 2022 meltdown.
They’ve had 24 years to prepare since Y2K and 2 years since WN meltdown. Bastian did not do his job, the board did not do its job, and as a result the company will lose millions in revenue.
If that doesn’t result in termination then what on earth will??!!
Maybe Elliott can buy some shares and re-work Delta instead of harassing WN.
Ed Bastian and the Delta c-suite should all report to work at their hubs. Station them to work the customer service desks. They can break for the occasional status update meeting and nap/sleep on cots. Do this until their miserable failure is handled.