Atlanta was hit with a significant storm that brought Delta Air Lines operations to its knees. The air traffic control tower at the airport had to be evacuated. Planes on the ground there on Thursday required inspection prior to flying. Delta cancelled 360 flights on Thursday, and 554 flights so far on Saturday.
Major cancellation events always have significant knock-on effects, as planes and crew are out of positions. While Atlanta led the world in cancellations, other Delta hubs were impacted as well. A tough week for weather overall, the American Airlines operation suffered too though not to the same extent.
@eastcobbsnob Will we make it to New York City? #atlanta #atlantageorgia #atlantaairport #airport #airportlife ♬ original sound – eastcobbsnob
Fortunately, as aviation watchdog JonNYC flags based on an internal Delta document, the carrier is making significant accommodations for passengers, going far beyond what’s legally required. They aren’t blaming weather as a way of containing their cost or responsibility for cancellations and passenger displacement.
In, fact they are agreeing to cover:
- Costs incurred by passengers during delays (e.g. hotels)
- Costs as passengers make their way on their own to their destinations, such as reimbursing rental cars
- And paying for travel on other airlines
Here’s the memo:
DL
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 6:07 PM
In past events, like Crowdstrike, they’ve been slow off the gate to fully assist passengers. This time they aren’t waiting. If your travels were disrupted by Delta’s operational meltdown, be sure to ask for full reimbursement and whatever assistance is necessary (if you can reach customer service, that is).
In the meantime, you’ve managed to get through a disaster of biblical proportions. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. Be grateful for what you have and for what Atlanta’s hometown airline giveth.
AA could learn something. Couple weeks ago when Dallas had their morning storm AA canceled numerous flights to prioritize others and left us on our own.
I love Delta. They always go beyond the call of duty..
My husband and I were stranded by Delta at the ATL airport along with 40 members of our church choir on the first leg of our 2 week choir tour in Ireland and Scotland. Our flights were rebooked, which kept us at the airport in anticipation. They canceled our flights 4 times, but only after we had waited for hours at each gate. We spent 28 hours at the airport until we rebooked on British Airways and Eire Lingus for flights the next day. It was horrible.
lol. You’re too funny, Tim.
You need a life and some reading comprehension skills.
Don’t believe the bs. Delta refused to reimburse me for a rental car after my flight was canceled 2 weeks ago.
Soon everyone will have a flying car no more airplanes,no more nasty chips,no more wasting time.
United should take a page from Deltas playbook. They left me and my family stranded for 2 days at Dulles in May. Trying to rebook flights and find hotel rooms at midnight with 3 small children was oh so much fun. Their ticket agents walked off the job at the end of their shift with a hundred people waiting to be helped. The flight cancellation cost us $1,000 and United refused to cover any of it.
max
EVERY sources – except for you – can figure out that DL pulled 100 aircraft from service for inspection and a small handful of those aircraft – in line w/ expectations – suffered hail damage and need repairs.
YOU are the one that needs to learn to admit that you opened your flap and made a completely wrong statement that the cancellations on Friday night and Saturday were due to an intentional cancel and reset operation.
But we have seen over and over and over again that you spout off about stuff that you don’t understand and then launch into endless attacks on other people – like me – when they point out how wrong you are.
Kristy,
I am sure it was a bad experience. having a severe storm sit on top of an airport for a couple hours is not what DL planned.
I’m glad you got to where you were headed. Sing pretty
Sunday has been better than Friday evening or Saturday, but still many delays, and ATL is suffering. Thankfully not routing through there today. Mercy to you if you are…
Former Pats tight end Benjamin Watson’s Delta flight spent 7+ hours on the tarmac after a diversion due to the thunderstorms. He says: “Hang in there!” Trying!
as of right now, DL’s mainline on-time is 25% delayed while AA is at 24% delayed.
ATL is 39% delayed with 1% cancellations while CLT Is 37% with 3% cancellations.
There is flow control across JAX center so just about everything going to/from Florida from the north is delayed
It isn’t a surprise that the two largest hubs to Florida are impacted but that has nothing to do with the Friday night storms which explains WN’s 27% delay rate.
The only reason why UA’s delays are “only” at 19% is because they are so small to Florida.
@Tim Dunn — Oh, so, Florida’s the issue tonight? *gulp*
yes
Most of DL’s delays in the summer are related to summer thunderstorms in Florida.
@Tim Dunn — Hope you like the movie Airplane: “…looks like I picked the wrong week’ to fly through MCO! *snorts glue*
Disney hasn’t figured out how to keep thunderstorms out of Central Florida.
@Tim Dunn — Bah! I wouldn’t bet against the mouse (or its lawyers)… *wink*
I was stranded Thursday night in Minneapolis for a 10:30 p.m. flight. they canceled it at 2:00 in the morning and left us just hanging. no way to get home 250 mi. it’s very frustrating but I know they can’t control the weather but at least they could give you an option. that’s better than waiting 2 days for the next flight
This is absolutely wrong, I was there and heard Delta gate agents tell people they dont cover hotels for weather events. Multiple times. Nobody was informed and it was an absolute mess.
“ Be grateful for what you have and for what Atlanta’s hometown airline giveth”.
This is such a stupid and plain rude thing to be saying. It’s awesome that Delta is going beyond according to the industry’s law and standards in the US. But it’s way past the time for us customers to realize we must not beg for assistance in circumstances like this. Law, regulations and competition should work on customers behalf not the contrary. After two consecutive days of cancellations and a third which almost made me lost my connection to a 10+ hour international flight out of Atlanta, to which I was booked in Delta one but had to fly coach, I was offered a standardized email apology and a $250 voucher as compensation despite the fair class itself being priced at the 3000s. Notice I am not complaining about extra nights in hotels nor extra car rental fees. And you cynically say we should be grateful for what they give us?
Peter…..2 weeks ago is not this past weekend.
DL ran a near normal operation yesterday – 36 hours after the massive ATL storm.
all of the big 3 had delays in the low 30% range with AA and DL – which have the largest operations in the southeast – each cancelling 1% of their mainline operation.
CLT had 5% cancellations compared to 2% for ATL even though ATL is a much larger airport in terms of number of flights.
weather targets different areas of the country at different times of the year. the SE including FL is more prone to summer thunderstorm activity.
No other airline has had to pull 100 aircraft for damage assessments as DL had to do Friday evening and Saturday.
the difference between how DL handled its operational mess at ATL and what other airlines have done is that DL allowed customers to get themselves out of the situation in ATL and send the bill to DL afterwards if DL staff couldn’t help them because of the sheer number of people, something that other airlines have done after much larger operational meltdowns.
Hopefullly what DL did is change the threshold for the industry as to when customers can take control of getting themselves back on track after a major operational mess regardless of who was at fault.
DL’s PR machine is amazing, but it’s BS. . .my past experience has been “figure it out yourself” and I generally find another airline helping. What I find strange is CLT has similar weather and some CX and delays but nothing like ATL. HMMMM is AA’s AI better than DL PR?
@Tim Dunn — Yes, Delta is unique to offer reimbursement here (as with Crowdstrike last summer). That may be little consolation to those affected in the moment, though, after the fact, it is indeed a big deal, especially if you had to stay at hotels, rent cars, purchase new airfare.
As always, I wish we had better passenger rights regulations in the USA, like EU/UK 261 or Canada’s APPR, though, even with such laws, airlines use the ‘severe weather’ exception. The question there is how far can that exception extend?
Here, arguably, the *main* ‘weather’ event for DL was Friday evening ATL, but it clearly cascaded into Saturday. It’s a real ’cause,’ but for folks with cancellations or significant delays on Saturday or Sunday, the link to the original ‘weather’ is attenuated.
I know, I know… it’s thunderstorm season in the US (as with every summer), and that’s gonna be ‘problems’ for the east, the south, ATL, NYC, FL, etc. Often, these are 3-5PM storms, that pass quickly, and then operations can resume, albeit a bit delayed. It’d be swell if there wasn’t hail and it didn’t cause day(s) of problems, though.
Hopefully lessons are learned here, though, with this administration’s recent defunding of the FAA and weather-related services… this may get worse, not better. Airlines need that support so they can better route, plan for such disruptions. Delta (and others) may need to hire more folks to prepare, otherwise, passengers will be disappointed. Then again, what choice do we really have…
Again, anecdotally, I fared alright between NY-FL this weekend, but I know others did not. Hoping everyone eventually made it to where they were going. And I feel for the crews, maintenance, ground staff, baggage handlers, call center folks, everyone that did their best under the circumstances.
sunviking,
the simple STATISTICAL fact -not your anecdotes – is that AA’s CLT hub has a much higher rate of cxls and delays than DL in ATL even though both hubs get very similar weather.
Even on a normal day, ATL is not near as over scheduled relative to facilities including airspace and runways as CLT is.
and 1990
many people legitimately were looking at how quickly DL recovered from an event that did require pulling 100 aircraft from service for inspections which is far beyond the norm of other weather-related IROPS.
DL did that within 36 hours and returned to their normal operation by Sunday morning.
It sucks if you are in that 36 hour period but that can happen at other airlines and has happened at other hubs on a more frequent basis this year than DL at ATL.
Actually that is false.
Delta is refusing to pay for accomodations or other expenses incurred by customers who had their flights cancelled and missed their business meetings and vacations. They are even causing additional cancellations when later flights are delayed and people miss their connections.
My own flight was cancelled on Saturday and I had to book a hotel for another night. And then Delta screwed up the connection on Sunday and I was stranded for another 6 hours — even though the plane was still at the gate — and waited an additional half hour for our luggage to be loaded on the plane (and we were not allowed to board).
Other passengers were told by Delta to book another flight at their own expense or wait until Tuesday. They lost thousands of dollars they paid for a family vacation in addition to incurring additional expenses.
@Tim Dunn — Pleasant surprise: My flight back to JFK last night arrived EARLY! So, from my point of view, Delta is back!!
heck of a lot better than Qatar at DOH for sure.
@Jon F — Sheesh! How’d everything work out for you, anyway? Hope you eventually made it out of AUH! Apparently, #47 ‘authorized’ the ‘face-saving’ attack by Iran (hence why all of the US aircraft were mostly already outta that airbase in Doha beforehand.) Odd times. Quite ‘performative’ it seems. Shame it had to negatively impact regular folks like yourself.
Still do not understand why Delta and AA ever decided to have their HQ in storm, hurricane, and other high frequency weather problem locations. Look, Atlanta is in the cusp of the Gulf winds and so is Dallas. What were these executives thinking at the time; it was always money driven as labor in the south is always more cost-effective. Now, they get to suffer in their terrible decisions with cancelations. United having it in Chicago will usually face one, at most 2 weather disruptions per year and that’s in the form of snow. Honestly, they should have their HQ and operations in places without these issues, cue LA, Phoenix, Seattle, or SF. The most the west coast sees are earthquakes and that does not impact flights as much.
Hi @1990 — QR provided no help at all, which was annoying. I did book a hotel and then a flight out by myself (also on QR). left around 2 days late. It was tiring but tolerable, and I did get a chance to see the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi (dazzling).
QR’s crisis management is terrible. I hope they fix it up. Certainly they have no shortage of money.
@Jon F — Glad you made the most of your extra time. I haven’t been to Abu Dhabi, but would like to visit some day. That Grand Mosque does look impressive!
Even the ‘best’ airlines can’t ‘bat a thousand.’ When things go wrong, many times, we, passengers, really are ‘on our own.’ I’ve been burned plenty over the years, not by Qatar (but that’s only a ‘yet,’ I presume), by Delta ample times, but that’s because I’ve flown them more frequently. Usually, they make it right in the end, but it can be tough, both in the moment and with the attempts to recover.
And the only thing travel insurance seems to be good for is finding ways to deny coverage for such delays and cancellations. (Oh, your delay, umm, actually, it wasn’t ‘long enough’ to qualify… turns out 2 days late, nah, ya need 72 hours or more… that happened once. Sheesh.)
Don’t let it discourage you. Still worth it to get out there and see the world.
@Gary
Just FYI. DL cancelled my flight Saturday morning and offered no alternative booking. 4 hour 30 minute callback time. I rebooked myself on AA. DL has declined to reimburse that cost.
So they were not as generous as reported. I had no expectation that they would be.
My husband and I were stranded in atlanta this past weekend. I know things change for the weather and safety is the main concern… weather happens all the time…Delta should have better emergency plans in place. There were thousands in a line and only 5 people helping. We found out that you have to scan a delta bar code at the front of the line – after standing in the line over two hours. A customer told us this then you can wait for a text message. Disabled in wheel chairs like my husband was in horrific pain and stuck in a chair. You could see It in their faces they were in pain.. There were no car rentals or hotels that I could find. We were on a plane from 9am to the next day at 3 am. No food till 6am when the resturants opened. Our terminals changed 4 times. It could have been handled a little better.
Delta is the legitimately the worst airlines ever. I highly doubt that they cover any costs that passengers incur. Over last 6 months, I had two flights with them and both of them got canceled. They never apologized, never offer any types of accommodation or anything. They say they cant h3lp and their employees never show an empathy. Hotrible experience horrible employees never again
This is absolutely NOT what is happening. My June 28 direct flight from LGA to Florida cancelled with little notice, no other flights to anywhere south of new jersey. Forced to drive 19 hours straight to catch family vacation cruise out of Port Canaveral. $1600 total in ubers to/from airport, gas, hotel on return drive, meals, rental car cancellation charge. Delta has agreed to reimburse $70 — zero explanation on how they came up with that number. Doesn’t even cover one of the ubers to or from the airport. Perennial diamond medallion with 25+ years of business and personal loyalty to Delta — I feel very foolish for that loyalty now. In the process of trying to escalate, but so far without any satisfactory resolution.