U.S. regulators are investigating how Delta Air Lines treats passengers affected by canceled or delayed flights as the airline struggles to recover from a global technology outage.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the investigation into Delta on social media platform X on Tuesday, saying it was “to ensure the airline is following the law and keeping customers safe amid widespread unrest.”
“Every airline passenger deserves to be treated fairly, and I will work to ensure that right is protected,” Buttigieg said.
Delta Air Lines and its Delta Connection partners canceled about 500 flights on the East Coast by midday Tuesday, roughly two-thirds of the total canceled flights in the U.S., according to tracking platform FlightAware.
The outage began late Thursday night and into Friday morning after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike deployed a faulty software upgrade to more than 8 million Microsoft computers worldwide.
The Atlanta-based airline has canceled more than 6,600 flights since the outage began, far more than any other airline, according to figures from FlightAware and travel data provider Cirium.
Delta Air Lines said it was cooperating with the investigation.
“We are committed to restoring operations after a flawed Windows update from cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike disabled IT systems around the world,” a Delta spokesperson said in a statement. “Our teams are committed to caring for and serving customers affected by delays and cancellations, and working to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta.”
Delta Air Lines says more than half of its technology systems, including the tools it uses to schedule pilots and flight attendants, run on Microsoft Windows, and the systems were unable to handle the multitude of changes caused by the outage.
Delta’s bankruptcy comes as a shock to a company that was widely considered the best of the major U.S. airlines, both before and after the pandemic, and the most profitable and best-run. Delta has almost always ranked among the top of all U.S. airlines in on-time performance.
The Department of Transportation said it had launched an investigation into Delta after it discovered continuing widespread flight disruptions and “reports of customer service issues.”
The department said the investigation would continue as it “processes the large volume of consumer complaints already filed against Delta.”
Investigators are expected to focus on whether Delta complied with federal regulations and promptly refunded passengers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed. Delta passengers whose flights were canceled Saturday were told that “if you do not want to rebook your travel, the ticket value will automatically be made available as an e-credit to be used toward a future Delta ticket,” according to text messages provided to The Associated Press.
In Washington, lawmakers are beginning to speak out. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Senate committee that oversees airlines, said in a letter to Delta CEO Ed Bastian that she is “concerned” that the airline is not complying with passenger rights enshrined in a law passed by Congress in May.
“While this technology outage is clearly not the fault of Delta or any other airline, we are concerned about Delta’s failure to respond to this situation and adequately protect the needs of its customers,” Cantwell wrote.
Delta’s bankruptcy is similar to that of Southwest Airlines, which canceled about 17,000 flights over a 15-day period in December 2022. A Department of Transportation investigation ended with Southwest agreeing to pay a $35 million penalty as part of a $140 million settlement.
Southwest blamed the outage on a winter storm, but while other airlines recovered within days, Southwest never did. Consumer advocacy groups have seen the same pattern emerge with Delta this month, which continues to blame CrowdStrike for its outages while rivals such as American Airlines recovered quickly. Even United Airlines, which has the second-highest number of cancellations, was back on track by Monday.
“It’s not what caused the problem, but how you bounce back from it. That’s the test for the airlines,” said William McGehee, a former air traffic controller and consumer advocate with the Project for American Economic Freedom, a group critical of big business.
