Delta Air Lines has continued to struggle with flight cancellations following last week’s global cyber outage. This came after a software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused system problems from Microsoft and its customers, Delta included.
Since the outage, Delta canceled over 5,000 flights, including 1,250 flights on Sunday and a further 305 flights cancelled on Monday. The Atlanta-based airline appears to be the heaviest affected by the outage, canceling around 44% of its total flights, with second-placed United Airlines canceling 9% of its flights on Sunday.
“In particular one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian divulged in an email to customers. He added that Delta would continue to adjust its schedule in order to prioritize customer safety. He added that Delta would work to avoid having customers being stranded at an airport for hours.
CrowdStrike confirmed that a large portion of the 8.5 million Microsoft devices that were affected by the tech outage have since been back online. It was reported that US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with Bastian to remind him of Delta’s duty to affected customers.