Lines for British Airways at some airports have grown longer as the carrier updates its systems.
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As seen in the above photo, a row of Delta planes sit still at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. Luggage sits on the tarmac Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, by gates at Orlando International Airport, in Orlando, Fla., after a computer outage.
Mary Soler arrived at about 9:45 a.m.to put her son and daughter on a Delta flight to Atlanta.
At Fort Lauderdale airport, long lines of passengers waited to speak with Delta personnel.
A spokesman for Georgia Power said that the company believes a failure of Delta equipment caused the airline’s power outage.
The glitch follows several high-profile computer problems faced by US airlines in the past year. “I won’t be flying with them again unless if I get an wonderful voucher that can take me somewhere grand”.
About six hours into the outage, the airline said that limited flights were resuming but that were delays and cancelations were continuing.
Airlines depend on huge, overlapping and complicated technology systems to operate flights, schedule crews and run ticketing, boarding, airport kiosks, websites and mobile phone apps. Delta says rebooked travel must be for flights no later than Friday.
“It does feel like the old days”, Kopsick said.
It is unclear exactly what went wrong at Delta.
The problem was caused by an early morning power failure in Atlanta, where the company is based, according a statement from Delta.
A local Delta employee referred questions to the company’s headquarters.
“My first thought was, are we going to miss our flight?” she said. “It’s a bit shocking”. But that alone should not have brought the system down – there are backups that should have kept Delta’s system up and running.
Amanda Jackson said: “Chaos trying to check in @Delta Heathrow t3”.
According to the most recent survey, the average cost of a single data center outage in 2015 was $740,000.
Delta’s system, called Deltamatic, started as a joint venture with Northwest and TWA in the 1990s.
Delta said it serves almost 180 million customers annually, employs more than 80,000 people around the world and operates more than 800 aircraft. He said no other customers lost power. “But the front end is all very modern, and Delta is rather well-regarded” in the industry.
IT problems are not unique to airlines. There have been high-profile breaches and breakdowns at banks and retailers, among others.
In response to the disruptions, Delta is waiving change fees for customers ticketed to travel Monday. The stock was hit last week when the airline reported a sharper-than-expected drop in passenger unit revenue for July. Getting information on the status of flights was particularly frustrating for passengers.
Even after the U.S. carrier lifted the order about six hours into the snafu, it warned of continued cancellations and delays, as tens of thousands of passengers around the globe were left stranded.
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United Airlines suffered a series of massive IT meltdowns after combining its technology systems with those of merger partner Continental Airlines. The glitch prevented passengers in Dallas, Chicago and Miami from checking in for flights, and customers may have been unable to make reservations.
