A power outage early Monday that halted Delta Air Lines flights worldwide was resolved just before 9 a.m. EDT, allowing some flights to resume travel. Thousands of Delta passengers around the world said they were experiencing delays.
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Computer outages have caused major headaches for airlines and travelers before. However, the ripple effect of the meltdown will drag on.
“Customers heading to the airport should expect delays and cancellations”, the statement said.
“While inquiries are high and wait times are long, our customer service agents are doing everything they can to assist”, it added.
“I guess it has been a long time since they used the manual process”, Resende told NBC News. That said, rebooked flights must be scheduled for no later than Friday. Over the next several hours, only a handful of flights took off instead of the hundreds that is more typical for a Monday morning, according to flight-tracking services.
The extent of the problem appeared to be global because the airline wrote in a number of tweets that “our systems are down everywhere.” .
Passengers reported delays at airports including London Heathrow, Tokyo and Los Angeles, NBC reported. It’s expected that flights will be delayed and canceled throughout the day.
The company said travelers will be entitled to a refund if the flight is cancelled or significantly delayed. The airline declined to immediately comment.
The Delta outage comes shortly after a similar incident with Southwest Airlines.
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-July 8 – United Continental grounded all of its flights worldwide for two hours, citing issues with a router. In the system of almost 6,000 daily flights, the airline had 23 days without cancellations. Flight status systems, including airport screens, were incorrectly showing flights on time, something the company was trying address. Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel more than 2,000 flights across the USA last month after technology problems prevented many travelers from checking in or boarding flights.
