Days after system outage, Delta air travelers still stuck in long lines — this time for their bags

Caption

Beckie Lee waits in the customer service line to file a lost baggage claim with Delta in a lawn chair she brought from home on July 22, 2024

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

Travelers with Delta Air Lines are still dealing with the fallout of a problematic system update Friday that caused flight cancellations nationwide. Delta passengers waited in line at Hartsfield-Jackson international Airport to file claims to get their luggage back.

A flawed software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that affected Windows-based IT systems nationwide led to Delta having difficulty staffing the airline's flights.

"Upward of half of Delta’s IT systems worldwide are Windows based," a statement from Delta said Monday. "One of Delta’s most critical systems — which ensures all flights have a full crew in the right place at the right time — is deeply complex and is requiring the most time and manual support to synchronize.  

That caused a cascade of flight cancellations across the weekend.

Some passengers waited up to three days to get to their destination and still haven’t left Atlanta. The Atlanta-based airline reported more than 600 cancellations, or nearly 83% of all cancelled flights within and in-and-out of the U.S. Monday.

Frank Johnson is traveling with his family. He said they've had five flights cancelled trying to get to back to Virginia and they’ve been separated from their luggage.

Johnson said he lost faith in Delta.

“We ended up paying for our own hotel; they were out of hotel vouchers,” he said. “We did sleep [at the airport] one night, and then we just ended up buying a hotel and then just switching airlines.”

The Johnsons weren't alone. Many Delta customers, facing delays in flights and long customer service lines, booked trips with other airlines as a solution.  When Holly Vlach had her flight cancelled she took a two-hour Uber drive from Philadelphia to Baltimore to catch the next flight to Atlanta on Southwest Airlines.

Vlach said now she’s just trying to find her luggage to get it sent to her home in Alabama.

“I was told yesterday my bag made it on the on one of the standby flights and was waiting for me here, but I had somebody scanning my ticket and they said it's actually still in Philadelphia,” Vlach said.

Customers who switched airlines still must file a claim in person with Delta to retrieve their missing luggage. Atlanta resident Beckie Lee said her luggage is still in Las Vegas because the line in Nevada was three hours long.

“It hasn't gotten to here yet, but in order to file a claim, you have to talk to somebody; you can't do it online,” Lee said. “You can't get through to anybody on the phone. So I knew that we were going to have to come up here and get in line. So I brought chairs.”

Traffic on the Delta app and website has led to challenges, but teams are working to stabilize both platforms, airport spokesman Andrew Gobeil said. The CrowdStrike software update which took down Delta operations didn’t impact Hartsfield-Jackson operations overall.

Gobeil said the technical issue mostly affected airlines, but they’re working with them to support travelers.

“We have instituted our crisis concessions plan, which means that there are concessions options everywhere throughout the airport during the time when operations are taking place and our green-coated customer service representatives are walking out making sure that everybody is comfortable,” Gobeil said.

Delta is offering waivers and reimbursements on select costs to customers affected by the delays.