Delta cancelling nearly 250 flights August 9 morning

PanARMENIAN.Net - Delta's travails, and those of its customers, move into day two with the airline canceling of another 300 flights, the Associated Press reports.

The disruptions Tuesday, August 9 follow about 1,000 cancelled flights Monday and, according to FlightStats, about 2,800 delayed flights, after an outage at Delta's Atlanta headquarters instigated a global meltdown of its booking and communications systems.

The airline was back online after a number of hours Monday, but the outages were so widespread that it is still dealing with the ripple effects a day later. FlightStats, a flight tracking services, puts delayed flights Tuesday at close to 600, and cancelled flights closer to 330.

More than 1,000 people spent the night at Narita airport outside Tokyo because of the shutdown and, while flights were resuming Tuesday, Delta spokeswoman Hiroko Okada said more delays are expected.

Delta also extended to Tuesday travel waivers issued to the stranded.

The airline posted a video apology by CEO Ed Bastian. And it offered refunds and $200 in travel vouchers to people whose flights were canceled or delayed at least three hours.

Delta's challenge Tuesday will be to find enough seats on planes during the busy summer vacation season to accommodate the tens of thousands of passengers whose flights were scrubbed.

Airlines have been putting more people in each plane, so when a system of a major carrier crashes, as has happened with others before Delta, finding a new seat for the waylaid becomes more difficult.

Last month, the average Delta flight was 87 percent full.

Confusion among passengers Monday was compounded as Delta's flight-status updates crashed as well. Instead of staying home or poolside at a hotel until the troubles blew over, many passengers only learned about the quagmire only after they passed through airport security.