The effect of the Global IT outage will linger post dashed holidays and grounded flights

For Airlines when something such as a “CrowdStrike” outage hits as a totally unexpected disruption then the challenge becomes even tougher, reinforcing the idea of dependence on technology and the need for it to be sound.

North American based airlines have struggled over the weekend to recover back to their normal operating levels, with Delta Air Lines still seeing around 1,500 cancellations per day across the whole weekend whilst their two major legacy competitors – United Airlines and American Airlines – appear to have restored services to near normal levels. Across the European carriers Easyjet increased the number of cancellations as a combination of crew duty hours and aircraft resources continued to impact the business, whilst carriers such as British Airways saw cancellations halve from Friday’s level over the weekend. Interestingly, China’s major airlines – while reporting some cancellations – appear to be more in line with their regular levels as no CrowdStrike software supported their operations.

In percentage terms over the weekend Delta cancelled around 25% of their scheduled flights and remain the most impacted of the airlines analysed. Spirit was the single most affected carrier on Friday 19th July, with nearly one-third of all flights cancelled, but they have now seen their rate of cancellations drop back to just under 10% on Sunday. With over 12% of flights cancelled on Sunday, EasyJet are still struggling to get back to a normal operation and will be hoping for an improvement in the first half of the week.

Source: OAG

Delta staff working 24/7 to restore operations

Delta people worked Monday to get the airline’s complex global operation back on track after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems of companies across the globe inoperable.

“We’ve got everyone around the company working around the clock to get this operation where it needs to be,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a video message to employees on Monday. “Keep taking great care of our customers and each other in the coming days.”

Upward of half of Delta’s IT systems worldwide are Windows based. The CrowdStrike error required Delta’s IT teams to manually repair and reboot each of the affected systems, with additional time then needed for applications to synchronize and start communicating with each other.

Extending a travel waiver. Delta extended a travel waiver for all customers with travel booked from July 19-23. The waiver offers customers the ability to make a one-time change to their itinerary. The fare difference for customers will be waived when rebooked travel occurs on or before July 28, in the same cabin of service as originally booked. Customers are encouraged to manage changes to their travel via delta.com or the Fly Delta app.

Right to a Refund Upon Request. Customers whose travel has been disrupted due to a canceled or significantly delayed flight may choose to cancel their travel and receive an eCredit for the unflown portion of the trip, or may instead request a refund for the unflown portion of the trip at delta.com/refund.

Issuing SkyMiles Program miles or a travel voucher in an amount based on the customer’s affected travels.

Covering eligible expenses resulting from this flight disruption, including providing meal vouchers, hotel accommodations where available and ground transportation.

Reimbursement of eligible expenses. Customers who have incurred hotel, meal or ground transportation expenses while in transit during this operational disruption may submit eligible expenses for reimbursement.*

Reaching out to customers about cancellations and rebooking options. Delta is notifying customers about delays and cancellations in their itinerary via the Fly Delta app and text message, and offering rebooking options that can be managed online.

While customers can monitor and manage their itineraries on Delta.com or on the Fly Delta app, these online tools have been inundated with traffic, causing intermittent performance challenges. Delta teams are working to stabilize those tools. Also note that our ability to respond to service messages on social media platforms such as X are limited.

Source: Delta