The CEO of Delta Air Lines, Ed Bastianfelt it necessary to apologize to customers for the technological failure that delayed and cancelled thousands of Flights.
The outage affected nearly every aspect of electronic life and was caused by a faulty software update from a cybersecurity firm. Delta was one of many airlines affected by the outage on Friday, July 19.
In his column in the airline’s monthly newsletter, Bastian wrote:
“The technology issue occurred during the busiest Travel weekend of the summer, when our booked loads exceeded 90%, limiting our re-accommodation capabilities. I want to apologize to each of you who have been impacted by these events. Delta is dedicated to connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted.”
Please know that Delta’s entire team of the best professionals in the industry has been working around the clock to safely get you where you need to go and restore the reliable, on-time experience you expect when you fly with us.
Specifically, the issue affected the Microsoft Windows operating system. Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular, one of our crew tracking-related tools was impacted and was unable to effectively process the unprecedented amount of changes brought on by the system shutdown. Our teams have been working around the clock to recover and restore full functionality.
We have issued a Travel waiver to allow you to make changes to your itinerary without charge. I encourage you to take advantage of that flexibility if possible. Additionally, for those whose Flights have been affected, we are continuing to offer meal vouchers, Hotel accommodations and transportation when available. And as a gesture of apology, we are also offering affected customers Delta SkyMiles and Travel vouchers. We will continue to keep you informed via delta.com and the app. Fly Delta for the latest information on your itinerary.
I want to thank Delta employees, who have been working tirelessly across our system to restore our best-in-class operation and take care of you during such a challenging situation.
Thank you for your patience as we resolve these issues, restore our operations and return to the reliability you expect from Delta.”
