Skift Take
As Delta’s meltdown continues for the fifth day, customers and Washington are becoming increasingly frustrated.
Delta is facing increasing pressure from its customers and Washington as a meltdown caused by an IT outage on Friday continues.
In particular, Delta’s customer service practices have come to the forefront. Passengers have complained on social media that the airline hasn’t offered them refunds, reimbursement for hotel accommodations or meal vouchers. Some passengers have reported waiting for hours to get on the phone with a customer service agent and others have been rebooking their flights with a different carrier.
One traveler told Skift he was unable to talk to a customer service agent after being put on hold for three hours.
Tuesday looked a little better for Delta, with 467 cancellations and 1,067 delays as of 3:25 p.m. ET, according to FlightAware. On Monday, Delta canceled 1,160 flights and delayed 1,809. Since Friday, Delta has canceled over 5,000 flights.
Other airlines have recovered far more quickly than Delta after an issue with a CrowdStrike software update Friday caused systems that rely on Microsoft Windows to crash.
Delta has long prided itself on its operational reliability and on-time performance, but so far, hasn’t given a timeline for when it expects operations to stabilize.
Delta's Meltdown Leaves Customers FrustratedDelta CEO Ed Bastian told customers i