By David Shepardson
(Reuters) – Delta Air Lines reported a sharp drop in cancellations on Wednesday, as the U.S. carrier appears to be getting back on track after canceling more than 6,000 flights since Friday.
The Atlanta-based airline said at 6:30 a.m. ET (10:30 GMT) that it had canceled just 47 flights — just 1% of its operations — compared with 511 on Tuesday and 1,160 on Monday. Delta said Tuesday night that it saw “solid day-over-day progress in operational metrics that the entire team can be proud of.”
A software update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused system issues for Microsoft customers, including many airlines, on Friday. But disruptions at other major U.S. airlines had largely subsided by Friday, but persisted at Delta.
The U.S. Department of Transportation launched an investigation Tuesday into the massive disruptions at Delta, which affected more than 500,000 passengers and stranded people in the United States.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the investigation is focusing on “how this outage happened and how the other airlines were able to return to normal days later,” as well as Delta's customer service.
“We demand a basic level of customer service,” he added.
The issue has enraged customers, with many complaining that they had to wait hours for help because the airline's helplines were overloaded. Some were forced to rent cars and drive hundreds of miles to reach their destinations, while others said they had to wait days for new flights.
Representative Rick Larsen, the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, said he will introduce legislation in the near future to increase airlines' operational resilience. “The slow response by some airlines to this meltdown is unacceptable,” Larsen said.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell said she is concerned that Delta is not living up to its passenger rights obligations under a new law.
In December, Southwest Airlines agreed to pay a record $140 million in fines over the 2022 holiday season that left 16,900 flights canceled and 2 million passengers stranded, concluding a USDOT investigation.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
