The global travel disruptions caused from a flawed cybersecurity update continued into Saturday evening and could stretch into Sunday and beyond as airlines grapple with stranded passengers, and out-of-place planes and crew amid lingering technology troubles.
Thousands of people spent the night Friday into Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after the technology meltdown that led to cancellations, sleeping on the floors and waiting in lines for hours. Others scrambled to find rental cars or other alternatives to complete their travels.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines canceled more than 1,200 flights Friday — the most of any airline in the United States — with hundreds more flights canceled Saturday. Other carriers also are grappling with lingering issues. And it could take days before the kinks are fully worked out, as airlines must reposition planes and personnel while wrestling with a sprawling information technology disaster, meaning travelers should expect disruptions. Some travelers will have to wait until Monday for their rebooked flights.
“It was just chaos,” traveler Kelsey Hagen said early Saturday morning. Hagen ended up staying through the night at Hartsfield-Jackson after flying back from Europe and finding out her connecting flight back to Orlando was canceled.
“It was an emotional situation for a lot of people,” she said. “There were people in full-blown tears. It was pretty bad.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
After getting out of Customs, she realized it was “going to be way worse.” In the international terminal, “it was packed. ... People were sleeping all over the floors.”
There were families with children with “no blankets, visibly no food, sitting on linoleum,” Hagen said.
The global meltdown started early Friday after a faulty security update implemented by cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike affected many Microsoft users. CrowdStrike has said the issue had been identified and fixes were in progress. But the outages triggered cascading problems for airlines, railways, hospitals, banks and other organizations.
‘People everywhere’
Traveler Shannon Chain said she walked in the underground Plane Train tunnel from Concourse C to baggage claim Friday night after her flight was canceled, and there were people sleeping along the walkways “the whole way ... They were everywhere.”
Chain and her husband Travis waited about four hours in multiple lines to try to get rebooked on a flight home to Norfolk, Virginia, after getting stuck in Atlanta on a trip back home from the Bahamas. Chain said tensions were high in the long lines stretching through the concourse. Some passengers yelled at employees, others tried to cut in line.
“It’s crazy. Lines everywhere. People everywhere. Nobody getting anything accomplished,” Chain said. While in line, Chain said she tried to get help through chat in the Delta app and was told there was a more than 600-minute wait — or more than 10 hours, and scanned a QR code to request help and was in a queue with thousands of others.
Some travelers have been under extreme stress.
“Especially with kids, there’s also not a lot of resources,” Chain said, noting a lack of diapers, formula or baby food to last through an extended stay at the airport.
As of Saturday evening, Delta had already canceled more than 900 flights scheduled for Saturday, or about 27% of its mainline flights, according to FlightAware — signaling the impact of the outage is lasting far beyond the initial ground stop that halted its operations early Friday morning. Delta Connection carrier Endeavor Air as of Saturday evening had canceled 44% of its regional flights, according to FlightAware.
At the domestic terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson — an epicenter of the technology outage’s impact on airlines as Delta’s largest hub — sleeping and stranded passengers were sprawled across the floors and chairs in the atrium, in the passenger greeting area, around baggage claim carousels and in upstairs areas.
Rows of luggage were lined up along baggage claim carousels, the detritus of flight disruptions that separated passengers from their bags and forced them to wait in line for baggage claim assistance to try to find their luggage
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Many people who were stranded after their flights were canceled Friday may have to wait days to get home. And, others who have not yet been hit by the impact of the outage will now have their trips disrupted.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Delta said it expected more delays and cancellations “potentially through the weekend.”
On Saturday morning, CrowdStrike issued a statement saying it has deployed a fix and is “working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption,” CrowdStrike said in its statement.
Many stranded travelers said they were exhausted Saturday after scrambling across the airport, waiting in endless lines and spending a restless night with other passengers, including families with young children.
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Shakim and Tiffany Tilley arrived at the airport with their 2-year-old and 10-year-old kids at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
They were supposed to take a cruise with relatives. They instead spent 12 hours at the airport through delay after delay, before the flight was canceled because it didn’t have enough crew members.
“It was absolutely horrendous,” Shakim Tilley said. Their daughter, 2, “was jumping around everywhere,” and the 10-year-old was crying after learning she would miss the cruise with her cousins.
“It was a madhouse,” Tiffany Tilley said of the concourse. “You were stepping over people just get to the bathrooms.”
Their trip scuttled, the Tilleys spent hours Saturday trying to retrieve their checked bags.
Rebecca Malmquist was trying to fly from San Diego to Jacksonville, but instead ended up stuck in Atlanta without her checked bags Saturday.
“There’s a lot of confusion,” said Malmquist, who arrived in the wee hours of Saturday morning. She slept on the floor of the domestic terminal, then got up in the morning just after 5 a.m. to get in a line that stretched down the baggage claim area to try to find her luggage. She said she also had to spend about $600 extra for a flight to get to Jacksonville after her flight was canceled.
‘I feel helpless’
Delta said it was providing meal vouchers and hotel accommodations to affected customers. Hagen, the passenger who arrived in Atlanta from Europe on Friday night, said she was told Delta had run out of its hotel accommodations and was directed to book her own lodging and file for reimbursement. Other Delta customers also said they were not given vouchers.
She ended up waiting in line for about an hour to get rebooked for a flight home to Orlando departing Saturday afternoon. If she hadn’t been able to get that flight, “I would have definitely been screwed because I was tracking rental car prices last night and they were $1,200 for a Camry,” Hagen said. Those rates lowered to about $300-$600 when she searched again Saturday morning, she said.
At Delta customer service, “They had, I think. three or four people at the counters, but the other computers weren’t working,” Hagen said. “They had everyone working at the computers that were working.” At the international terminal, agents at times struggled to get boarding passes printed, and at one point the baggage system became overloaded and the agents had to stop accepting checked bags, she said.
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Then she waited for an hour-and-a-half for a shuttle from the international terminal to get to the domestic terminal for food, where a Burger King was one of the few concessions still open just before 3 a.m.
While Delta said it was offering customers rebooking options that could be managed online, some customers said the app and website did not update properly when they tried to use them, and they had to use paper boarding passes. Some airport kiosks seemed to not work properly, and last-minute gate changes and cancellations caused further confusion, Hagen said.
Hagen received a message from Delta apologizing for the cancellation of her flight and that the airline was “unable to find comparable flights,” and directed her to search on her own for other options. “We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience,” the Delta message said.
In a message posted to the website X Saturday afternoon, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg reminded stranded passengers — and warned airlines — that customers who do not want to rebook their travel have the right to ask for a refund.
”I am hearing reports of some airlines only offering flight credits to passengers for cancelled flights,” Buttigieg wrote. “Let me be clear — you are entitled to get your money back promptly if your flight is cancelled and you don’t take a rebooking.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Credit: Steve Schaefer /
Hagen then decided to try to get some sleep for the first time since landing the night before. She headed to an upper level of the domestic terminal atrium where dozens of other passengers were lying down along the walkway and trying to get some rest.
Travis and Shannon Chain couldn’t get rebooked on a flight back home until Sunday evening, and their luggage ended up checked through to their final destination. So, when they got stuck in Atlanta as their connecting city, they found themselves without toothbrushes or extra clothes.
“We’re essentially hobos,” Travis Chain said. “I feel helpless. I do. There’s literally nothing we can do.”
Have you been affected by the Delta flight cancellations Friday and Saturday? Share your story by emailing AJC reporter Kelly Yamanouchi at kyamanouchi@ajc.com.
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