Computer glitch and airline disruption

It’s been a bad few days for Delta Airlines and its passengers, and it’s turning into a bad week. The computer glitch that rolled through many of the world’s systems last Friday has hit Delta particularly hard, and the airline is struggling to recover. Many of our clients were impacted by the problem, and we’ve been busy this week helping them reschedule their flights. Unfortunately, in some cases missed flights meant they missed special events, and we’ve been working closely with these folks to help them recover their costs with insurance claims.

            So, what happened?

            A U.S.-based cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike, seems to be the unwitting culprit. Used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, CrowdStrike said one of its recent content updates had a defect that impacted Microsoft’s Windows Operating System. It was not a cyberattack, the company said, merely a technical error. (We wouldn’t want to be that luckless programmer.) CrowdStrike quickly identified the problem and uploaded a fix, but by then the damage was done, worldwide. When the glitch took hold Friday morning, thousands of airline flights were canceled. American, United and Delta were the biggest U.S. airlines affected, with the glitch causing massive communication problems within their systems. As of Saturday afternoon, just over 24 hours into the event, over 1600 cancellations and nearly 5000 delays had been posted by the airlines.

            The aviation industry relies on overlapping technology to keep the massive system running efficiently and safely, from flight control software to tracking software in control towers. Airline reservation and scheduling systems are in the loop, too, so as the CrowdStrike error cascaded throughout Windows, it wreaked havoc with the airlines’ most vital systems. No issues were reported with any aircraft, but the outage caused the FAA to grant airlines’ requests for “ground stops,” meaning that flights had to be delayed while the problem was addressed.

            Delta is the airline most of our clients use, and it was one of the hardest hit. Its crew scheduling software was particularly affected by the glitch, the airline said. Delta and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Endeavor Air, together canceled nearly 4500 flights between Friday and Sunday, with hundreds more delays and cancellations being posted on Monday. Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, issued a statement saying that the glitch required his IT teams to manually repair and reboot each of the affected systems, and additional time was then needed to allow the applications to synchronize and start talking to each other. Although Delta’s crews were all available to staff the planes and fly, its critical staffing software, which ensures that each flight will have a full crew, is “deeply complex,” Bastian said, requiring the most time and effort to repair.

            Delta can’t just tell its customers that it’s sorry. The Department of Transportation says the airline is required to honor its customer agreements, which include rebooking passengers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed on other services at no additional cost, as well as providing hotels, meals and ground transportation vouchers for those eligible. The DOT is investigating hundreds of complaints filed by frustrated Delta passengers who say they didn’t get any of those services. In response, Delta said it would reimburse customers for hotel, meal and ground transportation expenses paid out of pocket as a result of the disruptions, but not for “prepaid” costs like hotel reservations at the customer’s destination, vacation experiences, lost wages, or event tickets.

            Will they get it straightened out? Eventually, yes. Other airlines have gone through massive problems before, although not quite at this scale. Some experts in cyber security are saying that Delta and other airlines will have to look strongly at upgrading their computer systems. The airlines tend to use older technology than other industries, because regulations can make it difficult to get new systems approved and their widespread operations make upgrades cumbersome and expensive.

            Delta has worked hard in recent years to build up its “brand image,” and that has certainly taken a hit this week. Other airlines, like United and American, have been recovering more quickly, and some observers are saying that this week is the most critical in Delta’s history. If it doesn’t start getting its planes and their passengers in the air as scheduled, the airline’s reputation—and future business—could take a significant hit.

            We’re confident Delta will get this straightened out and be ready to take you where you want to go. Give us a call, and we’ll work together to make sure you get out there! 

Sue Tindell