Delta's flight delays and cancellations prompt Dept. of Transportation investigation

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The Biden administration has proposed a rule to ban additional fees for seating family members together on planes. Here, a Delta Air Lines plane leaves the gate on July 12, 2021, at Logan International Airport in Boston. / AP

Travelers, be sure to pack some patience. Chaos is still underway with Delta Air Lines, as the airline has entered its fifth day of flight cancellations and delays following Friday’s global software outage.

And while the Atlanta-based carrier is still trying to get operations in order, the U.S. Department of Transportation has opened an investigation into the recent flight disruptions, citing “the high volume of consumer complaints” the department has received against Delta.

“We have made clear to Delta that they must take care of their passengers and honor their customer service commitments,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement Tuesday.

“This is not just the right thing to do, it’s the law, and our department will leverage the full extent of our investigative and enforcement power to ensure the rights of Delta’s passengers are upheld," he added.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Delta had canceled more than 400 flights and delayed roughly 860 flights for the day, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

In a statement to NPR, Delta Air Lines acknowledged the Department of Transportation’s notice of the investigation and said it is "fully cooperating" with the department.

"We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable," the airline said in its statement, adding that teams are constantly working to get its operations back to normal.

On Monday, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said that the airline has been working to restore the software that tracks and schedules its flight crews. However, he noted that it may take a few days to fully restore the airline’s operations.

“We’ve got everyone around the company working around the clock to get this operation where it needs to be,” Bastian said in the statement.

In a public letter Sunday, Delta offered travel waivers to customers on flights impacted by the outage, allowing them to change itineraries and rebook their flights without any added fees. But in a post on X, Buttigieg said that under new federal regulations, customers are not obligated to accept the travel credit offered to rebook flights but are entitled to a prompt cash refund.

"Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to take rebooking, free rebooking for those who do, and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance," he wrote.

Millions of Microsoft users worldwide were knocked offline following a flawed software update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity group. CrowdStrike said the problem was not a cyberattack but a "software glitch." After identifying the issue, the company said it withdrew the "problematic channel file" that affected customers' systems.

Delta’s technical issues are comparable to those that occurred with Southwest Airlines during the 2022 holiday travel season. The Dallas-based airline canceled thousands of flights and left millions of travelers stranded.

Following the incident, the U.S. Transportation Department ordered Southwest to pay $140 million in a civil penalty, which was by far the largest the DOT has ever levied for consumers, the department said in a statement announcing the penalty.