Delta Air Lines may be starting to turn a corner with their internal operations finally, after melting down on Friday, cancelling thousands of flights (nearly 3 times as many as in all of 2019 and more cancellations than in all of 2018 and 2019 combined), and displacing hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Things are going to be very rough today. Customers aren’t going to experience the improvements yet. While the numbers will get much worse than this, so far ‘only’ 12% of Delta flights have been cancelled today and another 11% delayed. (In contrast, neither American nor Southwest have cancelled even 1% of flights.)
Delta still hasn’t recovered from the CrowdStrike mess. ATL is filled with bags. My flight to NYC was cancelled at the last minute & Delta booked me on a flight that took off an hour before the cancellation. The app just say “oops, we’re sorry.” In line to rebook with 100 others pic.twitter.com/AZUFkruJ00
— Brendan Keefe – Atlanta News First (@BrendanKeefe) July 23, 2024
The biggest systems problem has been the airline’s inability to keep track of its crew and assign them to flights.
- A huge backlog of data just could be processed
- They were running multiple parallel systems to catch up, but those then needed to be synced
- Customers have even heard announcements in terminals asking for anyone that can fly planes to raise their hand
The consequences of this have been planes out of position and crews out of position, and the airline not sure where all the pieces are. That means employees timing out rather than being able to fly, and planes not receiving their scheduled overnight maintenance. There’s a backlog of people and machines, not just computer data, that will need to catch up once systems are fully restored.
However it does appear that systems are coming back. Aviation watchdog JonNYC reports real progress on crew tracking, though it remains a huge challenge.
DL: Crew Tracking queue is below 1,000 for first time since Friday.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 23, 2024
Meanwhile, though Delta CEO Ed Bastian says he told off Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that Delta doesn’t need reminding about its obligations to customers, there are plenty of reports of passengers sleeping in the airport after being told that no hotel or meal vouchers would be made available. Southwest was much more generous with customers when it melted down a year and a half ago. And the DOT has opened an investigation. Delta can expect pressure to do more for passengers, along with fines (for which they’ll receive credit for the value of reimbursements provided).
.@USDOT has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.
All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) July 23, 2024
The biggest problem is that Delta hasn’t admitted the problem and taken public ownership of it. They screwed up – big time – and they’re still blaming forces outside their control. Delta is an airline, and airlines fail. They have antiquated technology and even laid off IT staffers last fall. They refuse to deviate from their superiority narrative in the face of evidence to the contrary about this last week where they’ve underperformed everybody else in the world.
The Delta Premium Experience continues.
Gary,
I’m not a DL flyer but have lots of friends who are. So many people don’t follow this industry like your blogs so they simply don’t know. When I have been sending them links to your blog posts about the DL issues, they are greatful. Not because it fixes the problem, but because they are informed and they understand the issues. They actually have a better impression of DL due to your blog posts because they are given details and have some compassion.
My point: Communication — real, authentic communication — is so key in business today. It can garner sympathy and good will. Yet so many companies fall down here.
Mayor Pete finally got his “premium” shine box out.
Coming from a DM/MM, I’m hoping DL gets humbled in a big way.
Interesting timing, I literally watched the secret life of the worlds busiest airport (ATL) documentary on YouTube last week before this happened — can’t imagine what the featured employees, their colleagues, and passengers have been going through.
I was curious about customers hearing calls for anyone who can fly – I learned from the doc that pilots have their own lounges (I mean I guess I knew, just never really thought about it) which I imagine would be preferable to waiting in the civilian chaos…could they just make their pleas there and avoid the PR issue? Or maybe those are just packed too and it doesn’t matter…
Gary,
yes, there are green shoots and there were yesterday. And the failure of other systems set them back.
You need only look at the pattern of delays and cancellations yesterday compared to previous delays as well as the availability of seats on other carriers, DL is running a delayed operation until the early to late afternoon but then the wheels fall apart.
And given that AA’s on-time ended up with on-time worse than DL’s yesterday, you are beyond naive if you think that there weren’t thousands of passengers that were stranded at AA hubs last night. Every airline ended up with 34% plus delays after running fairly well during the day indicating that the last flights for nearly every airline were massively delayed which resulted in huge amounts of passenger inconvenience. The scope of DL’s just happens to be so much larger driven heavily by ATL.
and, of course Mayor Pete is going to chest thump. He is on the verge of being pushed out of office and being passed over for a promotion even now.
Delta has sent out mass vouchers by email but you can’t reissue tickets by email. The mere fact that other airline capacity vanishes for the evening including on Southwest says people are booking travel on their own and will deal with reimbursements from DL later – which is exactly what WN did.
WN doesn’t interline with other carriers but DL does and many DL passengers are indeed being booked on AA, AS and UA etc and you can tell that from the booking patterns of availability vs. WN.
Tim,
Pete Buttigieg is not responsible for a global IT meltdown, caused by a private sector company, that cascaded into an airline that clearly has many problems under the hood of profitability. Maybe take some of those profits and invest in IT?
Your commentary here is frankly, really laughable.
I realize some may not have the means to make alternate plans, but at some point, people have to find a way to fend for themselves.
“Stranded” at a domestic airport going to another final domestic destination? Rent a car, drive, find a way. May seem like a knee jerk reaction, but, do something to improve your situation.
Just sitting around in the sink-cost fallacy looking helpless, tweeting your grievances, or hoping someone like Mayor Pete or the airline is going to help you, is just hoping a leprechaun is going to ride in on a unicorn and bring your a mai tai while you wait in line.
But, DL, gets what they deserve. All the years of public arrogance caught up to them in this instance.
**SUNK-COST fallacy. Sorry, I should’ve proof-read my post before hitting the post button. Typos and errors are common on this here blog anyways right?
@ lavanderialarry
The DOT has sold responsibility to regulate airlines. Airlinescannot even be sued. Unless it is in small claims court. This is 100% on Mayor Pete.
Larry,
let me guess that you believe NO ONE in the administration of the US government is responsible for the failures caused by huge IT companies which also caused massive delays at multiple ports – which have not been cleared – but Mayor Pete goes after the high profile airlines just as he never fixed the Port problems during and post covid.
The only people that are teflon coated is the failed administration that is likely to see a massive turnover if not eviction.
and Gary is right – DL’s crew tracking systems are apparently working – that was evident yesterday. The issue was that their operations systems crashed.
I don’t claim to know how DL’s IT is pieced together but it is a massive interconnected group of systems that couldn’t be replaced in ten years with billions of dollars while the airline still operated.
You and others with your childish statements about underinvesting in IT demonstrate your complete ignorance and repeating the same thing that 10,000 other people on social media are saying.
“You can’t reissue tickets by email”
I don’t know, Tim, United has the ability to proactively accommodate passengers and allow extensive self service during IRROPS. But I am guessing that’s inconvenient for you to acknowledge.
“ I don’t claim to know how DL’s IT is pieced together”
Lol ok boomer
How is Pete B responsibile for a private companies poor planning, lack of execution and low level of investment? This is all on DL leadership. You all love to bash AA and UA but right now, their investment into their technology and equipment is making DL look like a ULCC. AA’s AI system for rebooking that you like to bash saved their behind.
I have said for years that DL’s past it’ hay day and now it will take years for them to recover. LUV is still under the gun from 2022 and DL looks even worse. Maybe paying for high profile washed up quarterback isn’t a good investment and bringing back some IT professionals would be a better use of your money.
DL. . .Not getting you there. . . Grounded!
and DL has an app that is also working and other IROP functionality.
The issue last night was the operations system failed after the crew tracking systems came back online and were working – that is why Jon noted that crew tracking is not the problem.
and, no, you cannot reissue a ticket by mail. My statement was correct
DL EMAILED vouchers and other passenger amenities so that DL agents and the app could be be used for ticket transactions.
WN did not do that.
and Mayor Pete can’t figure out the difference between mass emailing of vouchers and reissuing tickets which have to be done inside a res system unless DL releases the ticket to another carrier or other carriers pick up unrestricted DL tickets which many of them very much are doing.
We seem to have very different definitions of the word “functioning.” Believe what you want, Tim. You were once entertaining. You’re now a very sad, whimpering example of the dangers of recreational paint-huffing.
And people thought the SWA Christmas meltdown was bad. SWA passengers were at least made “whole”. Getting reimbursements for hotels, cars and flights on other airlines. SWA even threw in miles on top of all that. 25,000 to be exact. And the reimbursement (in cash) only took a couple of weeks)
It will be interesting to see what, if anything Delta does, to try and make up for it.
For a premium, elevated travel experience with an airline that lies to its customers, please consider Delta.
@Tim Dunn
You sure seem to mimic what Delta has been saying for the last couple of days. The lack of communication is frustrating coupled with any communication blaming the DOT or CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike was the source of this, but I can’t think of any other company that has done a worse job of recovering. If Delta owned up to it people would be more understanding. We’re flying DL in a couple of weeks and I’m sure things will be back to normal by then. Glad it’s not this week.
Here is an interesting punishment idea for DL, and maybe for AA and UA… don’t give them new beyond perimeter slots at DCA.
@Tom Dunn
The app was working if you consider it trying to send you in the opposite direction as functioning. We could have straightened it out with a human if we’d only been willing to wait on hold for 17 hours.
I really don’t understand the myopic comments about: DOT, the government or Mayor Pete being responsible for any of this.
That is just dumb. They didn’t design Deltas IT system, control it, test CloudStrike software etc.
I suspect much of the “blame” other than CloudStrike itself, will come down to the back up systems using the same CloudStrike kernel in the OS as the primary systems do.
Projecting a political bias into this is not constructive nor realistic.
I have seen many of the Republican candidates, top to bottom, saying they would get rid of many government agencies.
Assume that had already happened. Who would you blame then. Maybe that’s who you should be blaming now?
I read every word Tim Dunn writes so you don’t have to:
Delta — the only airline that is perfect in thoughts, words and deeds. The best company in the history of the world. The first company (predates Hudson’s Bay), the richest company (more profitable than Google), and the largest company (they own a refinery — so big)
Southwest — a pretty good airline, but not perfect. Should be more like Delta
United — airline that needs a refinery and isn’t very good in the Pacific
American — I wish there were more hurricanes so that more of their flights would be delayed
Delta vendors — companies who are responsible for anything that goes wrong at Delta
People who “get it” — people who agree with me
Fact — anything I write
Opinion — anything I don’t agree with, including statistics that paint Delta in a bad light
Mayor Pete — dumbest human being ever, with the possible exception of Gary and Ben
Bias — anti-Delta opinions
“You need to get off the Internet” — a really clever insult that wins the argument every time
“The only person who XXXX is you” — a really effective comeback that makes people agree with me every time
The stock market — a perfect tool to show how good Delta is because there is always some period of time when Delta is outperforming competitors
Seattle — place where Delta makes more money than Alaska
The Pacific — a place where it doesn’t matter if you have a big route network
Texas — a place where you wouldn’t want to have more than 7% market share
Delayed Delta flights — an opportunity for a traveler to spend more time with Delta
Delayed flights by other airlines — an outrage 100% of the time, even if due to weather
Cancelled Delta flights — not a problem because Delta will reaccommodate you — most likely on a routing that will get you to your destination even faster than your original itinerary
Cancelled flights by other airlines — conclusive proof that Mayor Pete doesn’t get it
Delta’s bankruptcy — something that never happened
Pilit.
I have the email that Bastian sent out Sunday acknowledging that DL’s IT systems failed and have seen interviews since saying that DL takes responsibility and is doing all it can to get its operation back on track.
Even this latest says they made progress but saw setbacks in some other areas.
It’s amazing that you claim a lack of communication – are you really a Delta pilot – but somehow can’t manage to find the communications that your CEO actually put out?
And H2,
thousands of passengers during the WN meltdown whipped out their credit card, bought tickets on other airlines, and dealt with the reimbursements later – just as happens with other airline IROPS ALL THE TIME.
Are you telling me that you are incapable of pulling out a credit card and getting a new ticket? there absolutely are seats available on other airlines to most destinations including from ATL which is still the worst place for all of this for DL.
and for those of you that want to hang DL’s IT, if there is any legitimate question that needs to be raised is why DL doesn’t move about 10% of its capacity at ATL to other hubs including DTW which runs very reliably and is doing far better than other hubs.
Every time DL has a major meltdown, it is ATL that takes forever to get back on track and pulls the rest of the system down.
ATL is simply too large of an operation to manage when the wheels fall off which they do about once per year
and the same thing is true of DFW and CLT for AA.
For those UA fankids that need a pat on the back, UA’s strategy of having multiple similar sized hubs with no superhub like ATL or DFW is what allows them to recover so much faster
@Jim
You can solve all of Delta’s problems now because I award you the internet for the day.
@Tim, your MAGA leanings aide, y’all want the government out of everything (except for your bedrooms apparently), and yet when things go wrong and you fools can’t move around, you want the government to fix it. What a warped ideology you swim in and chip away at your country each and every day. Grow a pair and stop blaming others for your own failures.
Jim
if your reading comprehension is as bad as what you just wrote, you really need to stay off the internet and go back to school.
If you are going to stay on the internet, post the EXACT quotes for ANY 3 of the statements that you came up with.
You can’t because you manipulated what I wrote in the face of your own bias
You either can’t read or you have the lack of self-awareness that you accuse me of not having.
@Tim Dunn, you wrote “Are you telling me that you are incapable of pulling out a credit card and getting a new ticket?” You need to have some compassion for people who are living on a shoestring, people who don’t have credit cards, etc. Not everyone has the ability to spend $2K on a last-minute ticket and hope that Delta reimburses them in two months. Absolutely clueless comment.
@ Tim Dunn — sure thing.
Delta is perfect — here’s an interesting, ironic headline from Seeking Alpha: “Delta Air Lines To Thrive With New Consumer Protections”
“Get off the internet” — you used it twice in your reply to me while you were being an absolutely perfect caricature of yourself.
“Dumbest human being” — here’s what you wrote about Ben yesterday: “Ben – Clearly I hit a nerve. Good. You, just like Gary, have been bullied for large parts of your life. Your site is now the tool through which you get revenge. I can see it clearly.”
“The only person who …” — here’s you yesterday: “the only person that is obsessed with any airline is you and United.”
Delta in Seattle — you have written that Delta and Alaska are rational competitors in Seattle, which is an insane argument because a rational competitor wouldn’t run a money-losing hub.
Bigger picture, if you don’t understand satire and sarcasm, there’s nothing I can do to help you.
My god. He posts analysis on Seeking Alpha too? Incredible stuff, couldn’t make it up if I tried.
tim, please explain why operating systems that allow unsupervised kernel-mode updates are superior to bespoke alternatives like unix and scada
@H2OMAN re:
“The DOT has sold responsibility to regulate airlines. Airlinescannot even be sued. Unless it is in small claims court. This is 100% on Mayor Pete.”
Please share the date when you believe this happened.
tim’s house is on fire and he’s arguing it’s structural integrity
@Hagbard Celine
The date what happened? Mayor Pete huffed and puffed but did nothing?
Ooops. Just saw my autocorrect error. That was supposed to be sole authority. I’m a STEM guy.
H2oman
what date
the date you say “mayor pete” was responsible for “Airlinescannot even be sued. Unless it is in small claims court.”
when did that happen? what date? in what legislation? in what regulation? show your work
h2 is absolutely right on this point
and to think you and others are telling others that they are not wrong
not a single thing you claimed, Jim, aligns with what I wrote… to absolutely no one’s surprise
and right now, 15% of AA flights are delayed while DL – which is melting down – has “only” delayed 21%. UA is at 8%.
AA and UA have cxld 1% of their flights but they aren’t melting down and both operate smaller mainline systems than DL
The biggest problem is that Delta hasn’t admitted the problem and taken public ownership of it. <<< This reminds me of a Delta fanboy here lol
@tim
“h2 is absolutely right on this point”
which point?
@gary point of order:
“and to think you and others are telling others that they are not wrong”
that string of words is not english
can we get some moderation up in here?
Now if they can address the baggage issue and return our personal belongings to ease the considerable expense associated with not being able to fly, and do so with some humility, we’ll consider cutting them some slack. Their arrogance and unwillingness to work with us has left a very sour taste in my mouth. I’ll be looking to another carrier to spend my money and time with.
@Hagbard Celine
Federal Aviation Act. Look it up yourself, like all laws it’s online. Even Mayor Pete has on the DOT website how to sue them in small claims court as that is your best option.
C’mon guys, enough bickering and let’s get back to what this blog is good for. Good, solid, right wing travel talk.
Imagine how much worse this Delta situation would have been if its flight attendants were union.
WN = ?
For years Gary and everyone else raved about how great the customer service was at Delta but this was all a big PR lie. Delta is no better than any of the others.
The bigger question is why the airlines do not have backup systems in place when this has been a known threat since Y2K. 24 years and everything still goes fubar when one system goes down.
I used to work in oil. When Exxon Valdez had a spill every company completely overhauled their safety programs and spill plans. Yet when WN has a scheduling computer outage, DL management and others simply twiddle their thumbs and say “that can’t happen here” or “oh well, no way to fix it with our antiquated IT”
Hopefully class action lawyers will have a field day here and claw back some compensation from the overpaid Directors and executives who failed to sufficiently resource IT and develop congtingency plans.
Delta pilot here. Tim is clearly not a Delta employee. It has been a complete mess, and anyone who has been here (I’ve been here since 2005) would know that we were whistling past the graveyard hoping the IT house of cards didn’t fall. You know why UA, AA etc all recovered? Better IT. You know why we didn’t? Same IT that we saw in every previous meltdown. An IT system that assigns me, an NYC73NA an ATL330B trip is broken. It’s the same IT system that melted us down in April 2017 for 5 days when a line of thunderstorms went through ATL. It’s the same IT system that melted us down in August 2016 when the power surged in Atlanta, they tried to blame Georgia Power, only to have to walk that back and admit they screwed up. And every time Ed promises the same “deep dive” to fix what’s wrong. What was once an industry problem is now squarely a Delta problem, and it got to this point because of OUR incompetence, not Crowdstrike’s.
@Boraxo – “For years Gary and everyone else raved about how great the customer service was at Delta ”
I don’t think that’s really an accurate reflection of what I’ve said. Generally Delta flight attendants are marginally more service-oriented than their peers at American and United, and Delta phone agents have been flexible with rebookings during irregular operations (though generally unknowledgeable).
Poor, poor Delta. The latest “premium” US airline to scrape the gutter.
Welcome to the bottom of the US big three! You’re even making AA ok good!
Flying from Atl to Tpa. General situation much much better today than yesterday. Hope they’ve started to recover
@JRSAlpha
“Delta pilot here. Tim is clearly not a Delta employee. It has been a complete mess, and anyone who has been here (I’ve been here since 2005) would know that we were whistling past the graveyard hoping the IT house of cards didn’t fall.”
Amen.
It’s an antiquated system that they just keep bolting things onto. When you have to run Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all at once ’cause some applications only work on one or the other, something’s wrong.
During COVID, we used the downtime to speed up a lot of CapEx projects, and I honestly thought this was going to be one of them. Maybe it’ll get done now?
@ Tim Dunn — your comment that “not a single thing you claimed, Jim, aligns with what I wrote… to absolutely no one’s surprise” is interesting, given that you had just pulled your trick of telling me to get off the Internet twice in the same post this morning. And it was every bit as pathetic as the other 7,000 times you’ve used it. But to refresh your memory on just how intellectually dishonest you are, here are some compare-and-contrasts of the various versions of Tim that we’ve seen over the past few years.
Tim Dunn — This morning: “Are you telling me that you are incapable of pulling out a credit card and getting a new ticket?” An interesting comment given what you said in 2022: “Many customers don’t have the flexibility to whip out a credit card and get their way home another way.” The Tim of 2021 seemed to be a bit kinder than the Tim of this week too: “Because the majority of the readers of this blog are generally well-educated travelers doesn’t mean that we should serve as the judge and jury of what consumers should consider an acceptable resolution to their travel irregularities, if they occur.” Tim of 2021 and 2022 was a fairly understanding Tim; Tim of 2024 just assumes everyone can float a $2K last-minute ticket for a few months while Delta deals with a backlog of claims.
You’ve been full of grace for Delta the last few days (instead training your fire on CrowdStrike). That’s a different Tim from this one in 2021: “If an airline cannot reset their operation overnight, there is a problem.” I agree with 2021 Tim.
In 2020, you promised to be a kinder, more positive Tim: “I welcome others to hold me accountable to the standard of “is something positive being said” and would suggest that be a standard we all accept in order to create a positive commenting environment.” That didn’t last — here’s what you said to Ben yesterday: “Ben – Clearly I hit a nerve. Good. You, just like Gary, have been bullied for large parts of your life. Your site is now the tool through which you get revenge. I can see it clearly.” Pretty clear that the new, positive Tim that you promised us in 2020 didn’t last, huh? And here was you being ****ty to Gary last year: “Another anecdotal opinion piece from View Inside the Rear Lav that is actually contrary to public data.” Pathetically juvenile Tim.
Tim Dunn — yesterday: “the hypocrisy and rage at Delta is as notable as the lack of yours and others memory of what has happened at other airlines.” That’s an interesting perspective given what you said in 2021: “Consumers, regardless of the price, buy their tickets with the expectation that their flights will be operated and reasonably close to on-time.” Interesting evolution in your thought process, eh?
These are all direct copy-and-pastes. The contradictions are easy to find when someone writes thousands of words of comment barf a day and the only consistency to any of it is “whatever Delta does must be defended.”
@H2oman
You didn’t cite a date. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 predates Pete’s birthday by 24 years.
Here’s a DOT document describing “how to sue airlines in small claims court”.
(remove all the spaces and the url functions):
https: // www .transportation. gov/airconsumer/air-travelers-tell-it-judge
It’s title is “Consumer’s Guide to Small Claims Courts” and has a date of September 1994, with a revision date of 26 March 2019.
You suffer from an extreme form of false association fallacy. The latin term is:
post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Look it up yourself.
Oh yes, I must also mention, that just because the CoC says you can only sue in small claims court, doesn’t prevent you from suing in any higher court. It has no teeth and no meaning in the justice system where the wheels don’t turn equally for anyone.
(again, eliminate the spaces and the url functions)
https: //americanallianceforequalrights .org/ wp-content/ uploads/ AAFER-SW-Air-Complaint-Filed-5-20-24.pdf
And before you recite some bullshit answer in reply, please read the first paragraph.
They are arguing the CoC in a Federal suit.
To hell with winning the internet for a day. Jim wins it for a whole week!