Analysis of Delta Air Lines’ Struggles To Address Meltdown Problem

Delta Air Lines’ operations have been dreadful since the computer crashes caused by CrowdStrike. While the number of delayed and canceled flights would be a problem for any airline, it’s a bigger problem for Delta, which lavishes praise on the quality of its operations at every opportunity. Not that it’s undeserved, mind you. When they’re running right, Delta is more reliable than other carriers. However, when things go wrong, Delta has a history of taking a while to get things going.

It appears Delta is unprepared to deal with the situation when everything’s sideways. That could be a result of them not having to fix problems like these very often. When you have a flat tire every month, you get good at changing tires. If you’ve never had a flat, you get out of your car, stare at it and wonder what you’re supposed to do next.

To put things in perspective, Delta has canceled more flights since the CrowdStrike crash than it canceled in 2018 and 2019.

While Delta has problems with getting their airline back to a normal schedule, they also aren’t very good at how to handle things during a crisis.

Yesterday, we flew on Delta and luckily arrived at our destination with only a small delay. However, I had made backup plans in case Delta delayed or canceled our flight. I was prepared to roll with the situation, knowing there were likely to be some issues along the way. We were surrounded by passengers who were supposed to fly over the weekend and were just getting to their destination. They didn’t have the patience that I did.

The recent situation with Delta and their handling of stranded passengers has sparked a lot of discussion. There are concerns about how they will address the issue, especially with government oversight. However, there are also some actions that Delta did not take during the aftermath that could have improved the experience for passengers who were affected.

Denying Responsibility

Delta’s statements during the incident seemed to place blame on an “outside vendor” without directly naming CrowdStrike.

While most airlines suffered outages, passengers noticed that Delta’s problems were much worse and lasted longer than the other airlines. It’s OK to blame CrowdStrike for the initial issue, but what happened after was a Delta problem, and Delta took way too long to acknowledge this fact.

Delta finally put out a statement about the meltdown, but still is blaming the “CrowdStrike-caused outage.”

Since the CrowdStrike outage late last week, Delta’s team of the best professionals in the business has been working around the clock to restore the reliable, on-time operation you’ve come to know and expect when you fly with us.

While our initial efforts to stabilize the operations were difficult and frustratingly slow and complex, we have made good progress this week and the worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us. Delays and cancellations were down 50% Tuesday compared to Monday, and we anticipate cancellations Wednesday to be minimal. Thursday is expected to be a normal day, with the airline fully recovered and operating at a traditional level of reliability.

I don’t know enough about IT to say how much of a fault this is due to Delta’s systems. But there’s no denying that the system that manages the crew and aircraft is what failed, and the airline should have some plans in place to handle such a situation.

Not Updating Passengers

While Delta has a PR problem, they are also having issues with passengers at the airport. This continued into yesterday as travel was crawling back to a sense of normalcy. Our Delta flight was due to depart around 2 p.m., and boarding was due to start at 1:15 p.m. I knew something was strange because the Delta App and FlightAware both showed my flight as arriving the night before, and it’s very unusual for a Delta plane to sit for 12 hours.

When we arrived at the Delta SkyClub, the agent checking us in said, with an air of surprise, “Your flight is set to depart… on time.” I replied, “I guess we’ll all see about that when it happens.”

Of course, when we walked to the gate at 1:15, there was a line of 20+ people waiting at the desk and no Delta agents to be found. There was a plane at the gate, which I was happy to see. It took until 1:30 for someone to arrive and start helping the people in line.

It wasn’t until 10 minutes before our initial scheduled departure that a Delta agent announced a gate change to another part of the terminal. So, an entire planeload of passengers trekked en masse to our new gate, where we arrived to no plane and no employees. However, there was a notice on the board that the flight was delayed 30 minutes.

This is when the Delta App updated and shortly showed our new gate before reverting to our old gate, leaving passengers confused. Should we stay? Some people started to walk back to our old (new?) gate when another update provided another gate and an additional 30-minute delay.

The passengers assembled near the new gate and waited. As the new time approached and went, passengers started to talk. “Why can’t they just give us an idea of when we’ll leave? We have no plane, so we’re not going anywhere!”

I heard others chatter about how they hoped that the crew wouldn’t time out. Others noticed that several Delta employees were gathered by the gate, waiting just like us. We wondered if they were the ones to work our flight or maybe they were getting back home or to their next departure point. But the major complaint I heard was not getting timely updates. Why did Delta only keep delaying by 30 minutes and waiting until it was almost past the departure time?

Finally, over an hour past our initial departure time, a Delta rep got on the speaker system to talk to the passengers. He said that the plane was at the other gate (read: our original gate) and had to be towed to our new gate. From there, the plane needed to be serviced and undergo safety checks, and then we could start with preboarding.

I’d never been happier seeing a plane towed to a gate. From here, it was straightforward. We ended up leaving around 90 minutes behind schedule but arriving only 60 minutes late.

Underestimating Passengers

Delta’s problem when dealing with passengers is undestimating their knowledge. Of course, an everyday passenger might not understand the intricacies of a passenger scheduling system, but they do understand that they’re not going anywhere when there’s no plane at the gate. The same goes for blaming CrowdStrike for the problems.

People are smarter than Delta gives them credit for. While people won’t be happy when their flight gets canceled, they’ll be more understanding than being told to get to the airport only to see their flight delayed over and over again before getting canceled and being stranded with no car and no hotel. However, if Delta doesn’t know when their planes are ready to leave, how can we expect them to provide correct and timely information to passengers?

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