Travel disruptions caused by a flawed cybersecurity update have continued into the start of the business week, with hundreds of passengers still stuck at the airport as airlines try to recover from the software outage.
Long lines and clusters of passengers sleeping on backpacks and folded blankets were spread throughout the terminal Monday morning.
As of 3:40 p.m. Monday, more than 370 flights were canceled in or out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
Atlanta-based Delta, however, canceled more than 800 Monday flights, or about 21% of its scheduled flights. Delta has had far more flight cancellations than any other U.S. airline after a faulty update from cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike, whose software is used around the world, forced multiple airlines, including United and American Airlines, to ground flights.
But the outage didn’t just impact the airport — hospitals, government agencies, retail stores and transit systems both in Georgia and across the globe were impacted.
As of 3:40 p.m., Hartsfield-Jackson had the most flights canceled Monday out of the airports FlightAware tracks.
Ray Langdale has been traveling since Friday, moving from airport to airport and hotel room to hotel room to get home from a work trip. Langdale initially arrived at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport in Mississippi at 6 a.m. on Friday. When his Delta flight to Virginia was canceled that morning, he booked a hotel room nearby until he could catch the next available flight on Saturday at 1 p.m. When that flight was canceled, he drove back to the hotel.
Langdale then considered driving back, but Jackson did not have any available rental cars. So he caught a plane to Atlanta, hoping that a bigger airport would have greater resources to get home. He arrived Sunday evening, and his connecting Delta flight to Washington Dulles International Airport was delayed and eventually canceled.
After standing in a customer service line for hours, he received word that he can’t book a flight to Washington Dulles until Wednesday. So he is going back to his initial idea: booking a rental car to drive back home.
“There are a lot of learning lessons,” Langdale said, who works as an emergency manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “This should be a wake-up call to our businesses that we need to have a lot better fail-safe systems to stop things from like this from happening.”
Langdale’s work is covering his unexpected travel accommodations, but he estimates the costs are more than $1,500.
Some travelers managed to get past the hurdles of traveling during the first two days of disruptions, but ended up getting caught later. On Sunday afternoon, Carol Barton and her husband landed at Hartsfield-Jackson from New York to catch a connecting Delta flight to San Antonio. When they arrived, they received word that Delta canceled their flight, but they could take another at 8 p.m. That flight was canceled. Delta said there was another flight to San Antonio at 3 a.m., but that flight was canceled, too.
Upset, they tried to find an alternative flight through Southwest, though it doesn’t leave until Tuesday morning — more than 24 hours after they touched down in Atlanta. Barton managed to find a room in one of the airport hotels, where they plan to rest until the flight tomorrow. They still do not have their baggage.
“It’s just shocking that something can disable an entire system like this,” Barton said.
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