If you have a Delta Airlines flight scheduled for today, you might need to check to see if it's still happening. The passenger airline has already canceled 550 flights today, as reported by CNBC. You can thank the ongoing chaos caused by the faulty CrowdStrike update for Windows PCs that was released to the world early on Friday.
The report says that the canceled flights represent 15 percent of Delta's mainline flights, even as the other major airlines have mostly recovered from the CrowdStrike "update." So far, Delta has reportedly canceled over 4,600 flights from Friday through Sunday.
Delta's CEO Ed Bastian posted a message on the company's news site Sunday, offering his and the airline's apologies. He also stated that customers should be able to get a travel waiver to change their flight at no charge. Any flyers who are directly impacted by the cancelations will also be able to get Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers, along with meal vouchers, hotel accommodations, and transportation.
Bastian attempted to put part of the blame on its problems with Microsoft's Windows operating system. He stated:
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.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg posted a message on his official X account late on Sunday stating that the agency has "received reports of continued disruptions and unacceptable customer service conditions at Delta Air Lines." He added in a follow-up post:
Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to take rebooking, free rebooking for those who do, and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance.
CrowdStrike has apologized for releasing the faulty update and has posted extensive guidance on how to get Windows PCs affected by the update back up and running. Microsoft has also posted its own CrowdStrike recovery tool options.
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