Delta’s Total Collapse: Hundreds Of Thousands Stranded, Unable To Even Talk To The Airline, While Others Recover

by Gary Leff

Delta Air Lines continues to perform poorly on Sunday, with more cancellations than any other airline in the world, stemming from poor recovery efforts from the CrowdStrike outage. In percentage terms, about the only airline faring worse than Delta is Endeavor Air which is owned by Delta, although United also still struggles.

Delta cancelled nearly 1,200 flights or over a third of its operation on Saturday, and nearly half of its flights were delayed. (Endeavor Air cancelled 44% of flights.) Spirit also struggled, while American cancelled 1% of flights and Southwest cancelled just… one.

Southwest Airlines was spared by its antiquated tech, such as Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, though this tweet wasn’t actually real.

American crowed deservingly about its ability to recover from the CrowdStrike outage, noting that it had passed before Saturday for the airline. Pushing back on my suggestion that American Airlines benefited from luck being early to have CrowdStrike turn the relevant servers supporting hem off and on, a spokesperson argued,

We devised some creative solutions early on at the IOC and worked closely with the FAA to find workarounds to get our flights dispatched. Wd also had some experts onsite there within 30 minutes of the issues popping up. So probably a bit more than luck!

Delta Air Lines, whose operation usually outperforms peers, seems to also have a harder time recovering from meltdowns. As Joe Brancatelli put it in his excellent ($) newsletter,

What is Delta’s particular problem? Hard to say, but its crews and aircraft are largely out of position and the airline has had a difficult time resetting. It has sent out an all-hands-on-deck plea to pilots and flight attendants asking them to pick up extra segments in hopes of getting back to something like a normal operation.

None of this should surprise you, of course. Despite management’s huffy insistence that Delta is a “premium” operation that runs better than other airlines, the facts show that Delta’s service-recovery processes historically are atrocious. It’s an ongoing issue whenever a glitch–whether internal or external–occurs. Delta seems to have massive difficulty getting back to whatever passes for “normal” in these times.

In practice this means long lines at airports and an inability to even reach customer service.

Delta crews have just as hard a time as customers, and have been stranded around the world. The airline lacked reserve crews to staff planes in order to recover. Saturday for Delta was even worse than Friday.

Passengers report being told they would have to wait 17 hours to message with an agent in the airline’s app:

Turns out that’s nothing, here’s 20 hours, and customers report that estimated wait times got worse from there.

1217 minute wait
byu/Stevetd16 indelta

Comment
byu/Stevetd16 from discussion
indelta

When these things happen our focus is usually on the passengers, but let’s not forget how hard it is for the frontline employees who generally don’t get any extra rewards for pressing through it.

The airline was silent from 10 a.m. Saturday forward, saying only before that they were ‘continuing their recovery.’

Delta is a good airline that is not doing very well right now. But it’s also an overrated airline, a result of its own PR machine that persistently beats the drum about how premium it is despite workhorse Boeing 767s whose premium passenger experience lags that of both American and United. This is a strong reminder that though it performs marginally better much of the time, and its crews are marginally friendlier, it’s still an airline and can underperform peers in dramatic ways.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I heard that WN had upgraded their IT to an Apple II. Everyone knows that Apple computers are more resistant to this kind of thing…

  2. A “premium” service recovery no doubt…

    Amazing how one update from one company can cripple banking/air travel/hospitals/emergency services.

    Hopefully mayor pete will investigate.

  3. If this one company, Cybercrap, can bring down numerous industries to the knees, imagine what a world war would do. Now that our adversaries see the weakness, is it not hard to imagine that they will go after this weak link? Kinda reminds me when the Iranian centrifuges went whacky one time. Delta will reward all employees for doing what they can to get it up and running as fast as they can. Kinda like when the power station blew up years ago. They were up and limping along in 36 hours. WN took nearly 2 weeks to get back up after they suffered a computer meltdown. I’m sure that most of the other airlines (save for Spirit and American) will do something to reward their employees hard work for getting them back up, too.

  5. When I arrived at LAX on Friday morning around 5:30 for my United flights, the line at the the DL terminal snaked outside all the way to the WN terminal. I haven’t seen anything like that before, even at Thanksgiving. Passing AA terminal, it looked very busy, but not insane. United wasn’t horrible either. It took me about 10 minutes to check in (in the Premier 1K area), and most of the chaos seemed to be related to the baggage belt not operating and bags piling up.

    My 7:10am LAX-IAH flight boarded close to on-time, and we waited a bit for weight and balance paperwork to come to the plane’s internal printer from HQ in Chicago. We got to IAH safely, and about 55 minutes late. My connection from IAH to BNA was slightly delayed due to inbound equipment from CVG, and we boarded at the original departure time, left about 20 minutes late, and arrived in BNA around 20 minutes late.

    My luggage left LAX a few hours after me, and UA had it in BNA about 4 hours after I arrived. (They offered to deliver it to my hotel in the morning, but I opted to pick it up right when it arrived so that I’d have my stuff, rather than the “emergency” toiletry kit they provided me.

    These slight delays could easily have happened on a normal travel day. So, while I realize that my report is a bit anecdotal, many of us flying United (which is, IMHO a far more premium airline than DL, especially for those of us who routinely fly in the pointy end of the plane) came out of this tech meltdown relatively unscathed compared to the Delta Dumpster Fire

  6. Premium IT Dept..

    Single point of failure with no real redundancy or Plan B/failover abilities (restore point prior to the failed update).

  7. @ Gary — Is anyone surprised?

    You know who will be here momentarily to tell us this Delta Disaster is because DL is so connection-heavy at ATL. Apparently choosing to operate from an outdated, over-capacity hub that can’t handle delays makes DL “premium”.

  8. Computer people are idiots .

    If you have a conversation with one , you will see .

  9. It’s okay that passengers had to wait 17 hours to contact an agent on the app, because those were premium hours. Some of those passengers may by Dunn flying Delta.

  10. Ever since 1980 the US has lost the plot on building and operating robust systems. Putin and Xi can pulverize the US whenever they want to.

  11. corporate america could EASILY create PREMIUM failover backup systems, architectures, topologies and networks

    but it costs a fortune, creates no revenue and therefore the street will not allow it

    what’s hilarious about this situation for the airlines is that they could easily run their gateware and certain operational systems on closed networks with zero external exposure, like they used to, but, like they used to, it would cost more money to do so rather than just run over the regular internet

    thus, you have retail products like crowdstrike that are supposed to insulate mission critical systems from the regular traffic on the net; any product with 24000 customers can not by definition be fit for purpose to harden the operational systems of an industry that is essential to our NATIONAL SECURITY

    i’m looking forward to tim’s attempt to defend delta in this circumstance

    he won’t understand the talking points he gets from his dad, but it will be entertaining nonetheless

  15. Nobody is worse in IROPS than Delta.
    That’s why they rank down there with Spirit in my book after 4 million miles on US airlines.

    At Delta? Everything runs by the book at DL. And when some pages become unreadable after Atlanta thunderstorms or yet another system outage? They fall apart.
    After the famous Power Outage Fiasco? They still had thousands of Pax stranded ATL a week later.

  16. I was at main American airlines international hub London Heathrow . I have to say they managed it very well . They offered support , in the lounge they kept us informed, agents came around to talk to us . There were lots of elderly pax returning from cruise looked really stressed.Admirals club agents came and had good chit chat and didn’t gracefully. They controlled Lounge line , made sure that they are accepting pax to the lounge as per the flight timings . I waited 25 mints in Lounge Q . When I got in they apologised and thanked for my patience. When boarding started for AA 51 to dfw …it was next to DL gate to ATL gate . Pax started shouting at delta agents asking why AA is boarding why not delta. Delta pax tried to gate crash American gate asking gate agents to sell seats to them .lol It was crazy . American agents re assured delta pax stating they will be back up shortly and requested them to cooperate with delta agents . I thought AA agents done it so nicely. Kudos to them.

  17. Delta really needs to fix their operation and to get things straightened out.

    Once that happens, Delta will definitely need to bring on experts like PwC or Accenture to fix their IT system and give it a complete rehab.

    The timing could not be worse, Delta’s schedule is stretched thin because of its large summer flying schedule.

  18. My United flight out of BNA yesterday morning was 2 hours late due to crew rest time. ORD – SFO canceled. I was able to re-book immediately on my laptop in the lounge; the line for an agent in the club was out the door. Every United trip I have been on in the last month has either had a cancelation or a delay (mostly mechanical) sufficient to miss a connection. Not blaming United. They do a good job and the crews are usually friendly (especially the pilots, interestingly). Dont fly Delta – they pulled out of our airport during Covid.

  21. I’d say this is the final push for Delta FA’s to come together and unionize. Let’s hope that Delta doesn’t punish employees as it recovers from this meltdown.

  24. JCW posted (in part): “Hopefully mayor pete will investigate.”

    Didn’t take long for some troll to put a political spin on this. Why does EVERYTHING have to have a political spin? It’s spin since JCW intentionally used the title “mayor” knowing he’s the Secretary of Transportation.

    Could JCW please post what he feels Secretary Pete could do within his area of authority? This entire disaster was caused by a third-party computer security firm and affected many business sectors worldwide. Could JCW please post which person in authority should investigate the banks? The credit card companies? The Wall Street brokerage firms?

  25. I never understood the fake news about delta being a great airline
    My family flew delta one business to Europe and said just ok
    I’ve been on their flights occasionally through the years and thought the slop they serve as
    Food to be no better or worse than the other crud served at other airlines
    Their pricing absurd for fools most of the time and their planes ancient
    Is it worth 500 more to go non stop really?
    Did I mention their miles tend to be worth the least of all the other FF programs?
    Ok I get it they are a premium carrier with the best customer service and on time arrivals and departures cough cough
    Yep not a fan here kind of last resort airline if they fly something no one else does
    that may make sense
    My last flight months ago was delayed 3 hours and i thought that was bad
    Relieved I wasn’t flying this weekend

  26. DELTA IS OVERATED!
    DELTA PAYS INFLUENCERS TO TALK DELTA UP!
    “PREMIUM” BULLSHIT!
    FACT IS, DELTA TECH., DELTAS AIRCRAFT AND PREMIUM CABINS LAG
    AMERICAN AIRLINES PREMIUM PRODUCT!
    LOYAL TO AA!
    LOTS OF GREATS THINGS COMING TO AA.
    DELTA CREWS ARE NICE BECAUSE DELTA THROWS MONEY TO THEM BUT, WORKS THEM TO DEATH!
    UNION YES!
    HOWS DELTOID TIM DUNN DOIN?
    STUCK ON A PREMIUM ILE 757.
    LOL

  27. My first and only Delta flight was a 28 year old 767-300 that should have been retired. The TV screen in business was 10″ and had such poor resolution that it could hardly be seen. Food and service was ok. I will never fly them again. Especially since their points redemptions are insanely overpriced.

  28. Living the nightmare in BOS right now!! First flight of 3 is delayed by 4 hours, will miss every connection. Told delay is due to no crew, but then being told by same delta agent that thus is not Delta’s fault . I booked myself on United leaving 6pm tonight instead. Ant chance Delta will return my checked luggage before then??? Doubtful!

  29. That last Tweet from James Bramble was spot on: Delta should definitely give all of its Gate Agents, Counter Agents, Reservations Agents and other frontline/operations personnel a significant bonus for getting through this. I’d add that all PAX affected should also receive a nice bonus in SkyPesos.

  31. To all the DL snobs. . .AA’s investment in technology is showing that paying out huge bonuses to your employee and not investing in your hard product will bit you again and again. Climbing? Think again, more like Grounded! Old plans, outdated IFE (which rarely work), slow WIFI (it’s free because who would pay for it), bad food. . yup that’s Delta. UA is still undoing years of poor earnings and lack of investment and AA is building labor peace and SLAs that are starndard and consitant (BTW, my AA service experiences are above and beyond thoses from DL anyday). Your smoke and mirror marketing and fake on time results can’t hide the truth, that DL is not a reliable carrier and not who they want you to think they are.

  33. To all the DL snobs. . .AA’s investment in technology is showing that paying out huge bonuses to your employee and not investing in your hard product will bite you again and again. Climbing? Think again, more like Grounded! Old planes, outdated IFE (which rarely work), slow WIFI (it’s free because who would pay for it), bad food. . yup that’s Delta.

  34. Delta is only helping those customers who are not Poor. If you spend 100K a year on our Amex we will help you. If not you are too poor for us to care. Sincerely, King Edward the 6th Bastain

  35. One other interesting point is that most of UA’s cancellations were entered yesterday, allowing proactive routes while passengers are not yet at the airport.

    DL had hundreds of cancellations go in just in the last few hours, likely leaving thousands stranded at the airport.

  37. TexasTJ there are not enough trailing zeros in this world to give a single passenger a nice bonus in Skypesos! A bonus of 1,000,000,000 Skymiles is worth like what – 12 cents?

  39. Platinum Medallioin here. Been on 3 Delta flights in the last 45 days. All 3 flights (all from Atlanta to LAX, FLL & LAS) were on VERY, VERY, VERY old 757. They are old and gross and yet they cost the most (Delta). I had a FA while boarding screaming into the PA system that anyone who has a backpack in the overhead, it will be removed by me (the FA) to put under your seat. When she grabbed my bookbag, I said I prefer to keep it in the overhead due to a very tight 757 (and I was not in comfort, etc). She glared at me and said ‘no and I dont care about status or you got to board first – put this under your seat or I will have you removed for not following crew instructions”. Way to go Delta for treating your best customers so well and respectful. I did write Delta and they gave me 5000 miles and said each FA can follow their own decisions about what should be allowed in the overhead. And finally, the man next to me, he got a double vodka tonic and the tray table was so old, the drink literally broke the tray table and the liquid fell all over him and myself. What did the lead FA do? LITERALLY NOTHING, did not even replace his drink. And I asked ‘did you write this up – did you use our info for Skymiles? Did you write up the table is broken? Her response? Just b/c a spilled drink does not entitle anyone to skymiles or compesnation and I cant write up every broken tray table, b/c that would be all I do every flight as these 757 are 40 plus years old and half the screens dont work (IFE) and half the seats dont push back. But Ed keeps flying these 757 with almost flight still using 757 and meanwhile even thier A321 are aging. They make so much money but Ed just doesnt put a cent into maintaining and remodeling these very old aircraft. Just wants shareholders happy. As he proved last year with the FF program, he does not care about customers. and 5000 miles for a platinum with over a million miles – insult

  40. Not sure why everybody continues to defend worthless Delta. Their CEO Ed Bastian should be fired for all the missteps that he has made throughout his tenure. Every time there is a crisis, Delta fails. Every time there is a critical bag that needs to be on time, it is lost or delayed. Never mind the surly flight attendants, the pilots who can’t land softly or handle turbulence, the blame-somebody-else attitude, or the monopolies that they hold in certain airports.

    Shameful behavior by Delta but expected by this Diamond-Miler who is forced to fly this crap airline because of said monopoly at home airport.

    Fire Ed Bastian.

  42. Tim,
    Now what excuse are you going to give us? Please explain why AA is better than Delta in this case. AA is only at 1%, I thought Delta was better than AA and United in EVERYTHING?

  44. This is not schadenfreude. It is well-deserved derision of Delta. Their PR machine makes it seems like they “walk on air” (pun intended). In fact, their airplanes are filthy, their employees poorly-trained, they blame others any time there is a problem, and they have unlawful monopolies in some airports that force those of us who would rather fly a good airline to take extraordinary measures to avoid Delta.

  45. @ Arthur — I live near a DL fortress hub, and I avoid flying on them whenever possible (which is usually). I far prefer AS for the excellent domestic F, NK for the dirt-cheap BFS fares, and UA for the superior aircraft, network and lounges. AA is fine for too for cheap mileage redemptions and typically low F prices. DL has few redeeming qualities in my eyes.

  46. “Computer person” here, lol. Had to recover about 500 systems after the CrowdStrike issue. There’s lots of misinformation, as always, about what it does, and why companies have it.

    Most, if not all, for the F500 companies use it in some capacity. Most ‘set it and forget it’; that’s the recommended best practice to defend against zero-day threats. However, in doing so, you’re trusting CrowdStrike to be diligent with their releases. Last week, they were not, and they will suffer tremendously over time with lost customers (my company being one). A few years ago they were the ‘golden child’, meaning any company looking for best in class protection would choose them. The modern day IBM, if you’re old enough to remember the saying ‘nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’. There’s now other viable choices, and since it’s now become clear this was an egregious error on CrowdStrike’s part, they’ve ruined, and I do mean ruined, their reputation.

    Every company needs and has protection similar to what CrowdStrike provides. In some cases, it’s a federal requirement. My guess – and that’s all it is – is that AA didn’t have it set to auto-deploy, whereas most other companies, and certainly Delta, did. Of course, since it only impacted modern Windows platforms, it’s possible AA are running core systems on Linux or something similar. It also sounds like they were a little more creative – or prepared – when working around the issues.

    If Delta has any blame here, it’s that they didn’t have robust, documented and tested disaster recovery processes, whereas AA did. DR testing is the bane of anyone in IT, we all hate doing it, but every now and then, it pays off. Auditors check you do it, but it’s easy to answer auditor questions.

    So good on AA for recovering so well. As a product, I don’t love them at all (despite being AA Plat Exec), and their IT has it’s own challenges, but all airlines IT are mired in legacy systems from the 70s & 80’s. AA did good here.

  47. The irony of this situation is that the companies who were too lazy to strengthen their own infrastucture from security threats delegated that responsibility to a 3rd party. Now the entire world knows who was the weakest among them.

  48. In your July 21 article I made it to the 4th paragraph before the first typo or error. Either no human reads this stuff or we just randomly insert “hem” in a sentence for the joy of it. I see this more and more as people use AI to create content. Words pass spell Check and no checks content. If you don’t bother neither do I. hem.

  49. @jsm

    Don’t be absurd. The “Secretary of Transportation” IS ultimately where the buck stops when transportation systems go catatonic and freeze up like a Geriatric Commander in Chief.

    HIS (Pothole Pete’s) administration implemented policies that fired thousands of ATC and pilot staff. Failed to deliver redundancies in ATC, dispatch and safety systems. Let Boeing slide on the Consent Decree. Despite “3 trillion for infrastructure”? The APM at LAX has just been delayed another year. The mess at SFO isn’t fixed.
    We’ve got ‘near misses” at our airports basically daily.

    If the Department of Transportation (after the billions in COVID we gave Delta so they could Bonus Ed Bastiard) isn’t ultimately responsible for this system? I don’t know who is.

  50. @Pete White

    Nobody is worse in IROPS than Delta. Nobody.

    Because they believe their own nonstop PR BS about “never canceling flights”, “best dispatch rates” and “top customer surveys”.

    None of which are objectively true. So nobody recovers more clumsily when they screw up than Delta– because their delusional culture is one of “we are the best, so we never screw up”.

    Keep in mind, this company had TWO complete ATL power system failures (both of which the DL “we don’t screw up” culture tried to blame on the power company) in quick succession– They had no power back-up plan, no contingency for loss of services and no plan to remedy it even after the first disaster. So, no, probably no surprise they got caught with their pants down here once again.

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