DOT Investigates Delta’s Poor Response to Tech Outage

The Department of Transportation is investigating Delta Air Lines’ poor response during last week’s tech outage. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced on Tuesday that the DOT is looking closely at whether Delta’s treatment of their passengers violated federal rules. The agency is also looking closely at the airline’s compliance with offering prompt refunds for passengers who experienced significantly delayed or canceled flights. 

Tech Outage Disrupts Airlines

Because of the tech outage, Delta asked its employees to pull extra duty, with its IT staff  working around the clock.

The meltdown was caused Crowdstrike’s update late last week. The bug affected different businesses including the aviation industry worldwide. Although other US airlines were affected, the issue lasted longer at Delta. It experienced problems with its crew tracking software making it challenging to locate both pilots and flight attendants. 

More than 500 flights were canceled by both Delta and Delta connection partners on Tuesday. This was an improvement compared to Monday. But despite the improvement, it still accounted for almost two-thirds of all canceled flights in the United States.

Buttigieg says they will investigate “how it could be that days after the other airlines are back to normal, Delta is still canceling hundreds of flights.” During the news conference, Buttigieg said that the DOT will examine Delta’s customer service. This includes “unacceptable” lines for customer service and unaccompanied children who were reportedly stranded in the airport. 

In response, Delta said that it is cooperating with the agency. 

Its spokesperson said, “We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable.” The spokesperson added, “Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers.” 

Delta’s chief of operations, John Laughter said the airline is moving its planes, pilots, and flight attendants “to where they need to be so we can return to normal operations by the end of the week.”

Reliant to Microsoft Windows

Compared to other airlines, Delta’s systems rely more on Microsoft Windows. The airline said that more than half of its systems rely on Microsoft Windows. This includes its tool for scheduling pilots and flight attendants. 

Late Tuesday, Delta announced that the backlog of issues had been reduced by 75% in the last 36 hours. Delta officials announced that normal operations are expected to return by the end of the week.