Massive Delta Outage Cancels Flights and Strands Passengers

A computer outage stranded tens of thousands of frustrated Delta passengers Monday as one of the world’s largest airlines was forced to cancel about 1,000 flights.

And the airline is still reeling. Delta reportedly canceled another 250 flights this morning in addition to about 200 delays.

“We are still operating in recovery mode,” Delta Air Lines vice president Dave Holtz told CNNMoney.

Delta says it’s investigating exactly what went wrong, but the airline points to a power outage at its Atlanta hub as the cause of the worldwide computer system failure.

The Atlanta-based airline’s computers were down for about six hours Monday, with flights resuming around 8:30 a.m. The ripple effect of the massive cancellations is expected to last several days and cost Delta millions.

Affected passengers, many of whom spent hours on the tarmac or sleeping overnight in airport terminals, will be allowed to rebook their flight without a fee as long as they do it before Friday. Delta says customers who experienced a “significant delay” will be eligible for a refund.

This week’s mishap comes just about a month after a similar computer problem grounded more than 2,000 Southwest Airlines flights, leading some experts to call for airlines to update their often outdated technology.