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The Department of Transportation is investigating Delta Air Lines to ensure it’s taking care of consumers as the company continues to cancel flights after last week’s global tech outage.
“All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in a statement on social media Tuesday. Buttigieg had previously said his department had received “hundreds of complaints” over Delta’s reaction to the tech outages.
Atlanta-based Delta has struggled to fully resume operations days after a botched software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike late on Thursday impacted businesses around the world. A defect in the planned update impacted Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, leaving corporate users without access to their systems and, in some cases, grappling with the “Blue Screen of Death.”
Almost every major industry was affected by the incident, including healthcare service providers, delivery companies, retailers and financial institutions. Airlines and airports were hit harder than most: On Friday alone, more than 46,000 flights were delayed and another 5,171 were canceled, according to FlightAware. Delta was hit the hardest.
Delta said it canceled about 3,500 flights across its operations on Friday and Saturday. According to FlightAware, the airline canceled more than 2,500 flights on Sunday and Monday and delayed another 3,441. Already, on Tuesday, 738 flights have been canceled or delayed, according to FlightAware.
“Canceling a flight is always a last resort, and something we don’t take lightly,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement Sunday. “I want to apologize to every one of you who have been impacted by these events. Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted.”
Bastian said Delta has a “significant number of applications” that use Microsoft Windows, including a crew tracking-related tool that was unable to process the changes triggered by the system shutdown. Delta said it has issued a travel waiver that gives customers the chance to change their flights for free as well as meal vouchers, hotel rooms, and transportation.