Delta cancels over 1,000 flights due to CrowdStrike outage repercussions
According to Reuters, the ongoing CrowdStrike outage, which began on Thursday, continues to wreak havoc as Delta had to cancel an additional 1,250 flights yesterday, in addition to the 3,500 already scrapped. This has resulted in tens of thousands of Delta passengers being left stranded, waiting for new flights that may take days to secure. Many travelers have been forced to cancel or reschedule their trips as the airline has not announced when it will return to normal operations.
Delta has scratched a third of scheduled flights for a total of 5,000 flights since Friday and delayed another 1,700. “One of our crew tracking tools in particular suffered and was unable to effectively handle the unprecedented amount of changes caused by the system shutdown,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian.
CrowdStrike’s software update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, leaving many in a boot loop that could only be recovered by technicians with direct access to the machines. According to CrowdStrike, the problem turned out to be a faulty sensor designed to detect malicious activity that “triggered a logic error that resulted in an operating system crash.”
Delta was the worst hit among US airlines, with United Airlines a distant second with about 266 (9 percent) of flights canceled on Sunday.
Initially, United and Delta told stranded passengers that they would not cover the bills because the CrowdStrike accident was beyond their control. However, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg later stepped in and said he considered the situation self-inflicted, so truckers must cover food, transportation and lodging costs required by law for delays of more than three hours.
CrowdStrike said today that a “significant” number of devices have come back online and the company is reportedly close to rolling out an automatic fix for the problem. Healthcare and other public services in the US and UK were also heavily affected by the outage, with the NHS warning patients that “some delays may still occur”.
