It wasn’t his fault, but Delta Air Lines
CEO Ed Bastian felt it was necessary to apologize to customers for the technological outage that delayed and canceled thousands of flights.
The outage affected nearly all aspects of
electronic life, and was traced to a faulty software update from a cybersecurity
company. Delta was one of many airlines that were
impacted by the outage on Friday, July 19.
As of Monday, July 22, worldwide
airlines were still feeling the repercussions, including Delta. In his column in the airline’s monthly
newsletter, Bastian wrote:
The technology issue occurred on the
busiest travel weekend of the summer, with our booked loads exceeding 90%,
limiting our re-accommodation capabilities. 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.
Please know that Delta’s entire team of
the best professionals in the business have been working around the clock to
safely get you where you need to go, and restore the reliable, on-time
experience you've come to expect when you fly with us.
"Specifically, the issue impacted 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 affected and unable to effectively process the
unprecedented number of changes triggered 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
enable you to make a change to your itinerary at no charge. I encourage you to
take advantage of that flexibility if possible. In addition, for those whose
flights have been impacted, we continue to offer meal vouchers, hotel
accommodations and transportation where available. And as a gesture of apology,
we’re also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel
vouchers. We will continue to keep you informed via delta.com and the Fly Delta
app for the latest information on your itinerary.
I want to thank Delta’s employees, who
have been working tirelessly across our system to restore our best-in-class
operation and take care of you during a very challenging situation.
Thank you for your patience as we work
through these issues, restore our operation and return to the reliability you
expect from Delta.”
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