Delta cancels hundreds of flights, but computers back up

About 17 hours after the outage at one of its facilities, Delta — third-busiest carrier at McCarran International Airport in the latest month — was struggling to resume normal operations and clear a backlog of stranded passengers. It sought to appease frustrated customers by offering refunds and $200 travel vouchers.

By 7 p.m., Delta said it had canceled more than 740 flights, but its computer systems were fully functioning again.

Tracking service FlightStats Inc. counted more than 2,400 delayed flights.

Delta representatives said the airline was investigating the cause of the meltdown. They declined to describe whether the airline’s information-technology system had enough built-in redundancies to recover quickly from a hiccup like a power outage.

FLIGHT STATUS UDATE PROBLEMS

For passengers, hardship from the early morning meltdown was compounded by the fact that Delta’s flight-status updates weren’t working either. Instead of being able to stay home, many passengers only learned about the flight problems when they arrived at the airport.

“By the time I showed up at the gate the employees were already disgruntled, and it was really difficult to get anybody to speak to me or get any information,” said Ashley Roache, whose flight from Lexington, Kentucky, to New York’s LaGuardia Airport was delayed. “The company could have done a better job of explaining … what was happening.”

Delta said that about 3,300 of its nearly 6,000 scheduled flights had operated by 7 p.m. Eastern time. The airline posted a video apology by CEO Ed Bastian.

A power outage at an Atlanta facility at around 2:30 a.m. local time initiated a cascading meltdown, according to the airline, which is also based in Atlanta.

A spokesman for Georgia Power said that the company believes a failure of Delta equipment caused the airline’s power outage. He said no other customers lost power.

Delta spokesman Eric O’Brien said he had no information on the report and that the airline was still investigating.

Flights that were already in the air when the outage occurred continued to their destinations, but flights on the ground remained there.

Airlines depend on huge, overlapping and complicated systems to operate flights, schedule crews and run ticketing, boarding, airport kiosks, websites and mobile phone apps. Even brief outages can snarl traffic and cause long delays.

That has afflicted airlines in the U.S. and abroad.

Last month, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights over four days after an outage that it blamed on a faulty network router.

United Airlines suffered a series of massive IT meltdowns after combining its technology systems with those of merger partner Continental Airlines.

Lines for British Airways at some airports have grown longer as the carrier updates its systems.

SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR IN LAS VEGAS

In Las Vegas, stranded passengers were sleeping on the floor, covered in red blankets. When boarding finally began for a Minneapolis flight — the first to take off — a Delta worker urged people to find other travelers who had wandered away from the gate area, or who might be sleeping off the delays.

Word of the extensive breakdown began to spread after the airline used a Twitter account to notify customers that its IT systems were down “everywhere.” Technological issues extended even to the company’s website.

Tanzie Bodeen, 22, a software company intern from Beaverton, Oregon, left home at 4 a.m. to catch a flight from Minneapolis and learned about the delays only when she reached the airport and saw media trucks.

Bodeen said that passengers were taking the matter in stride. “It doesn’t seem really hostile yet,” she said.

After 10 days of providing youth outreach on a mission trip in Fairbanks, Alaska, Steve Withey, senior associate pastor of GV Christian Center, said he and other church members, are feeling “blessed and lucky” that they were able to get on a plane.

The group of 13 were delayed four hours coming out of Fairbanks, and missed their original connection in Seattle. Waiting in a line of about 300 people, with a phone in each hand, Withey was able to connect with a Delta representative who was able to get all members of the group on a flight. They touched down in Las Vegas around 2 p.m., about four hours behind schedule.

“It wasn’t awful,” he said.

Margie Rush, 65 of Westchester, New York and her husband, Vincent Rush, 69, arrived at McCarran International Airport around 2:45 p.m. Monday to catch a flight back home after a summer vacation. Their flight was supposed to take off at 1:30 p.m. but was delayed by a few hours.

“We never heard from Delta this time,” Margie Rush said. “Usually they send me a text. I got nothing from them. The young lady at the hotel told me that your flight’s delayed.”

With the flight scheduled to arrive in New York around 1 a.m., Vincent Rush is not looking forward to waking up early, but said it will not keep them from flying Delta in the future.

Dee Near, 62, of Merced, California, and her group of friends who were catching a flight home after their hiking trip in Zion National Park, said their 7 p.m. flight was still on schedule. However, they were not given a seat assignment, and their travel agent spent two hours on the phone with Delta trying to get to the bottom of it.

“As far as we know, we’re going to get to our destination on time,” Near said.

The company said travelers will be entitled to a refund if the flight is canceled or significantly delayed. Travelers on some routes can also make a one-time change to the ticket free of charge.

Las Vegas Review-Journal writer Natalie Bruzda contributed to this report. Contact her at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Find @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.