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While most major airlines have fully resumed operations following a massive IT outage last week that grounded flights around the globe, Delta Airlines is still in the thick of it, canceling an additional 415 flights Tuesday morning as it works to restore service.
The outage can be traced to a defective software update issued by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that provides security software services to nearly 300 Fortune 500 companies.
So why is Delta lagging behind other carriers in getting passengers where they need to be?
A Northeastern University airline industry expert says Delta’s strategy to cancel flights instead of delaying them may be to blame.
For example, Delta canceled 36% of its flights on Saturday, the day after the outage, compared to 15% by United, and 1% by American.
“I would say that to the extent Delta canceled more flights than the competition, they created a higher level of difficulty in rescheduling those canceled flights on subsequent days and that difficulty was higher because of things like a lack of aircraft availability, limited pilot and flight crew, and lack of gates at airports,” says Ravi Sarathy, a professor of international business and strategy at Northeastern.
Sarathy says it doesn’t help that there is already a shortage of available pilots and flight crews.
Delta has canceled nearly 6,000 flights since the outage began, costing the company more than $163 million in lost revenue, according to CNN.
The U.S. Transportation Department has opened an investigation into Delta, with Secretary Pete Buttigieg posting on X that the department will work to “ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.”
The department says it has received thousands of complaints from Delta customers. For its part, Delta says it is giving customers travel waivers to allow them to change their itinerary at no charge.
Sarathy says the incident highlights the rigidness of the airline industry’s communication system.
“When these kinds of events happen, you don’t really have a lot of leeway,” he says. “You have to wait until communications are restored, because otherwise you are probably breaking the law if you fly when the conditions are not right for safe flights.”
Sarathy also says the outage exposed the airline industry for not having a backup plan.
“One of the questions that comes up is what kind of redundancy do you build into these communication systems so when one part comes down, the whole system doesn’t go down,” he says. “There are ongoing investments in upgrading air traffic control systems and air communications. Those probably need to proceed faster.”
Another important question to ask is what went wrong at CrowdStrike, Sarathy says, and how companies can make their code more robust and resilient.
“Our entire world is dependent on code,” he says. “The code is so arcane in so many different places and stitched together. It creates these points of vulnerability.”