Delta Air Lines Anticipating a Return to 'Normal' Operations Today After Global Outage
The airline said it's expecting "normal" operations by mid- to late afternoon.
— -- Delta Air Lines said it’s expecting to return to “normal” operations today, two days after a computer outage grounded its planes and left passengers stranded around the globe.
“Delta officials anticipate returning to a normal operation by mid- to late afternoon Wednesday following an outage Monday that disrupted the airline’s flight schedule, though a chance of scattered thunderstorms expected in the eastern U.S. may have the potential [to] slow the recovery,” the airline said in an online statement.
Delta has canceled hundreds of flights, and hundreds more have been delayed since a loss of power Monday morning in Atlanta that affected the airline’s computer systems and operations worldwide. Roughly 800 flights were canceled on Monday alone, airline officials said.
“Monday morning a critical power control module at our Technology Command Center malfunctioned, causing a surge to the transformer and a loss of power. The universal power was stabilized, and power was restored quickly. But when this happened, critical systems and network equipment didn’t switch over to backups. Other systems did. And now we’re seeing instability in these systems,” said Gil West, Delta’s senior executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Georgia Power released a statement to ABC News on Monday afternoon, saying it believed Delta experienced a failure overnight in a piece of equipment called a switchgear.
“Our crews have been on site this morning, and we continue to work closely with the team at Delta as they work to repair the affected equipment,” Georgia Power said in the statement.
Delta is providing $200 in travel vouchers to all its customers who experienced a delay of more than three hours or a canceled flight on Monday or Tuesday as a result of the systemwide outage. The vouchers are available for travel on all Delta and Delta Connection–operated flights.
The airline has also offered all customers a change fee waiver, regardless of whether their flights were affected, but passengers must hold tickets that included a flight on Aug. 8 through 11. Tickets must be reissued and new travel must begin no later than Aug. 21.
In 2015, The Economist ranked Delta as the top airline carrier in the world in terms of number of passengers.
“This isn’t the quality of service, the reliability that you’ve come to expect from Delta Air Lines,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a video to customers. “We’re very sorry. I’m personally very sorry.”
ABC News' J.J. Gallagher, Michael Edison Hayden and Becky Perlow contributed to this report.