Mass flight cancellations at U.S. airports continued for a third straight day on Sunday, lingering effects of a global IT infrastructure outage caused by a technical glitch that affected Microsoft’s Windows client on Friday and disrupted operations for many airlines.
Delta Air Lines and United Airlines canceled hundreds of flights again on Sunday as they continue to work to restore operations following issues caused by a third-party vendor over the weekend.
The issue has led to crowded terminals at airports across the country this weekend, with long lines of travelers frequently seen waiting to speak to customer service representatives and footage of passengers sleeping on the floors of airport concourses.
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By late Sunday morning, airlines had canceled more than 1,000 flights in the United States.
Delta Air Lines led the way with more than 500 canceled flights on Sunday, accounting for about 13% of its flights, according to data from flight-tracking site FlightAware. United Airlines was second with 253 canceled flights on Sunday, accounting for about 8% of its flights.
Airlines have canceled a total of more than 6,500 flights in the U.S. since Friday’s disruptions, including about 3,000 of them Delta flights, according to FlightAware data.
Delta Airlines
The Atlanta-based airline said in a statement Saturday that it was still working to get operations back on track after an IT outage at Austin-based CrowdStrike caused it and several other U.S. airlines to temporarily suspend operations on Friday.
Delta Air Lines extended its ban on unaccompanied minors flying through Tuesday (July 23) and extended a travel exemption that gives passengers more flexibility to change their itineraries, a move taken by other airlines including United Airlines.
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United Airlines
In its latest update on Saturday, United Airlines told TPG that its customer service call system has been fully restored and most of its technology systems are up and running again, but warned that further cancellations and delays may occur over the weekend.
According to FlightAware data, U.S. flight cancellations on Saturday were down 37% from Friday but still amounted to more than 1,600 flights per day, led by Delta Air Lines with 1,200.
Major hubs for Delta and United Airlines were among the hardest-hit airports in the US this weekend, ranging from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL) to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP), Denver International Airport (DEN) and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).
What will airlines charge you in the event of a cancellation or delay?
Although the issues stemmed from third-party vendors, and not from the airlines directly, the Department of Transportation considers the cancellations and delays to be “controllable,” in other words, the airlines’ responsibility, a Department of Transportation spokesperson told TPG on Friday.
This means that you are subject to the airline’s promises, as stated on the airline’s customer service dashboard. Here’s what each airline told the Department of Transportation they will guarantee in the event of a cancellation or significant delay:
Other important resources:
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to social media on Saturday to draw attention to the department’s refund policy.
“I’ve heard reports that some airlines are only offering flight credits,” Buttigieg wrote on Twitter. “I want to be clear: if your flight is canceled and you don’t rebook, you are entitled to an immediate refund.”
Outliers in 2024
The disruption to flights over the past 48 hours comes during a year that has seen few major disruptions to air travel.
According to FlightAware, between Jan. 1 and July 18, U.S. airlines canceled 1.3% of flights. Compare that to a cancellation rate of 2.6% for the same period in 2022.
Delta Air Lines specifically touted the reliability of its operations when it reported its second-quarter earnings on July 11.
“The operation that we’ve operated this year, every month, has been the best in the industry by every metric,” CEO Ed Bastian said at the time. The airline received high scores in both the recent J.D. Power Airline Rankings and TPG’s 2024 Best Airlines report, in part due to its operational reliability.
“Unforeseen disruptions like this are difficult and do not reflect the operational reliability and experience our customers have come to expect from us,” the company said on Saturday.
Recent major operational problems in the airline industry include United Airlines’ multi-day fiasco last summer, which prompted the airline to step up cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration on operations at Newark Airport, and an FAA computer malfunction in January 2023 that led to the first nationwide grounding since Sept. 11, 2001. The latter incident came just days after Southwest Airlines’ 2022 holiday operational disaster.
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