Delta‘s dominoes: CrowdStrike outage tumbles tech, strands thousands, prompting federal probe

Delta Airlines has canceled more flights in the last five days than they did for the entirety of 2018 and 2019.

At 5,500 and counting, that tops the two-year total of 5,369 from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019 as reported by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

“This is really, really bad,” Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, told MPR News Tuesday.

On Friday, a faulty update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to a worldwide crash of systems using Microsoft Windows. Airlines, banks, 911 networks, universities, state websites, hospitals, Times Square billboards and more had disruptions or went dark entirely.

CrowdStrike says it has deployed a fix and quarantined the bad data. But Delta remains the air carrier still canceling flights by the hundreds — including in and out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Potter said the outage pushed Delta’s other tech systems to their limits and ultimately broke a crew scheduling platform.

There are “plenty of flight attendants and pilots ready to work, Delta just can’t track them down. And they can’t assign them to all of the open flights that they have. So we see rolling delays,” Potter said. “A flight will get delayed by 30 minutes, and then two hours and then four hours, and then eventually Delta has to give up and cancel because they just can’t find the people that they need to operate that flight safely.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has opened an investigation into Delta. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on social media platform X, passengers should try to resolve their woes with the airline directly first, but “passengers who believe that Delta has not complied with USDOT-enforced passenger protection requirements during the recent travel disruptions” should file an online complaint.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told employees “We’ve got everyone around the company working around the clock to get this operation where it needs to be” via video message Monday.

This tech tumble hearkens back to the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown in December 2022; the airline canceled more than 16,700 flights due to outdated software. Southwest paid a $140 million fine — then the largest ever levied for consumer protection violations by the Transportation Department.

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“This is Delta’s Southwest Christmas 2022 meltdown, no question. This is the biggest meltdown since then. It’s Delta’s biggest snafu in many, many years,” Potter said.

Delta is offering vouchers or bonus SkyMiles and promises to pay for food, lodging and transportation while “in transit,” but will not cover “prepaid expenses, including but not limited to hotel reservations at the customer’s destination, vacation experiences, lost wages, concerts or other tickets.”

Under DOT rules, customers can decline an alternative flight offered by an airline in favor of a prompt refund. They also have a cancellation and delay dashboard comparing compensation and amenities from 10 large U.S. airlines, including Delta.

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