Delta Is Beginning to Recover From Meltdown, CEO Says

Skift Take

After days of cancellations and disruptions, Delta CEO Ed Bastian provided a timeline on when the carrier expected to stabilize operations.

Meghna Maharishi

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday morning operations were beginning to improve after days of struggling to recover from a tech outage. 

In a second letter sent to customers, Bastian said the carrier expected cancellations to be “minimal” on Wednesday. As of 8 a.m. ET, Delta had 47 flights canceled and 211 delayed, according to FlightAware. He added that he expected Thursday to be a “normal day” for Delta. 

Bastian’s letter is the first time Delta has provided some sort of timeline on when it expects to fully recover from a meltdown that’s lasted for over five days. 

“While our initial efforts to stabilize the operations were difficult and frustratingly slow and complex, we have made good progress this week and the worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us,” Bastian said in the letter. 

An outage caused by a CrowdStrike update last Friday led to thousands of flight cancellations worldwide. But most airlines restored their operations quickly. Since Friday, Delta has canceled over 5,000 flights. 

Bastian said the carrier would offer Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers as a “gesture of apology” for the meltdown. Multiple people Skift spoke with said they hadn’t received any email from Delta yet on getting SkyMiles. Some reported on X that Delta gave as much as 12,500 SkyMiles, which is worth around $140.

The Delta CEO added that the airline would also provide vouchers and reimbursements for hotels, meals and ground transportation. However, some customers told Skift that Delta customer service agents were reluctant to provide vouchers. Others said they were on hold for hours and couldn’t get in touch with a customer service agent. 

The Transportation Department opened a probe into Delta’s response to the meltdown and said it is processing a high volume of complaints against the airline. The last time the department launched a similar investigation was for Southwest Airlines’ 2022 holiday meltdown. Southwest had to pay a $140 million fine for the disruptions. 

Senator Maria Cantwell, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Bastian on Tuesday raising concerns about Delta’s customer service. She wrote that the carrier’s website did not “accurately and transparently reflect a passenger’s right to a refund.” 

The 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act says airlines are required to provide travelers with automatic refunds if their flights are significantly canceled or delayed and they don’t accept an alternative flight with the same carrier.