Delta Airlines has finally resumed domestic flights after 170 aircrafts were grounded due to "systems outage." The incident left passengers stranded at airports across the country.
The incident is believed to have taken place on Jan. 29 at around 6 p.m. ET.
"[Delta teams are] expeditiously working to fix a systems outage that has resulted in departure delays and cancellations. Not all of these delays and cancellations are being reflected on Delta systems, including delta.com, the Fly Delta App, airport information screens, or through reservations agents," said Delta on its official statement.
The statement also noted that Delta flights that took off would remain unaffected, but passengers can expect a delay on landing especially at Delta's Hub airports and the organization apologizes to its customers for such inconvenience.
Delta apologizes to customers for the inconvenience and will provide updates as they become available on https://t.co/QS4ugj8hOa.
— Delta (@Delta) January 30, 2017
As usual angry and frustrated passengers stuck on the tarmac took on to social media to vent their feelings about the inconvenient situation.
Major #Delta outage - I hope everyone makes it home safely. Investment in reliability always seems expensive until times like these. — Simon Ross (@simonwross) January 30, 2017
Looks like all of the #Delta arrivals into RSW tonight are delayed between two to three hours as a result of computer glitch @RenesPoints pic.twitter.com/AAbjzhJT8E
— STEVEN DODSON (@BSBALLUMP) January 30, 2017
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "automation issue" caused this widespread delay, which led to cancelation of 80 scheduled flights on Jan. 30.
Flight Delay At Hub Airports
Many passengers faced delay on arrival at Delta's Hub airports even if the flight landed on time. The situation became more chaotic and complex when cancellations and delays were not showing up on Deltas own systems.
The new travel restriction imposed by President Donald Trump has already made traveling a chaotic experience, now topped with the delay, passengers are at their wits end on how to deal with the situation.
Delta And United Flight Delay History
In August 2016, Delta had to delay hundreds of flights and cancel more than 800 due to a widespread system outage, which affected domestic as well as international travelers. Delta had to take this major step as the power-control module at the its Atlanta center caught fire, resulting in cutting connection to all computers. Due to this huge crisis, Delta suffered a $100 million loss in its sales in August 2016.
At the time, to pacify passengers stranded worldwide, Delta offered $200 travel vouchers to each and every affected customer.
The same incident took place with United Airlines on Jan. 22 when all domestic flights were grounded for almost two hours due to outage in the communication system of the flights.
Delta is the second-largest U.S. airline and operates an estimated number of 6,000 flights during summer months. It has a fleet of more than 800 aircrafts and boasts to fly almost 180 million passengers annually.
Photo: Franco Folini | Flickr
