Delta Still in Catch-Up Mode Sunday After This Week’s Operational Meltdown

Delta Air Lines’ epic travel delays following a disruption from severe storms earlier in the week continued into Sunday.

As of 10:30 p.m. EDT Sunday evening, the Atlanta-based carrier had already cancelled over 161 flights and posted some 1,455 delays, according to FlightStats.com, a website that tracks such information.

The number of delays and cancellations on Saturday was 1,407 and 388 respectively. Passengers on Saturday were being offered as much as $1,350 not to fly that day.

Passengers, however, were not the only ones Delta placed on hold. Pilots and flight attendants have not fared much better when calling crew scheduling. Several crewmembers told Frequent Business Traveler that their schedules were not being updated in the airline’s computer system, which tells them where to fly to and when, hence the need to call.

The meltdown came after multiple storms hit the Atlanta area Monday, followed by severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on Wednesday, lasting almost the entire day. Since some 60% of Delta’s flights fly through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the weather had much more of an impact than it would on other airlines where their route networks are far more distributed.

Some Delta employees reported on travel-related discussion forums such as FlyerTalk.com that Delta’s IT systems were unable to keep up, thereby contributing to an operational meltdown of mammoth proportions.

Delta now says it hopes to catch up by Sunday afternoon.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)

Update 1: The article has been updated to include more recent information about the number of flight delays and cancellations at the time indicated.