Summary
- Delta Airlines provides clear guidance and options to passengers affected by disruptions, helping ease frustration and confusion.
- Customer communication is key during disruptions, allowing affected passengers to know what to expect and how they will be taken care of.
- Delta takes responsibility for disruptions, offering refunds, eCredits, and covering eligible expenses, emphasizing passenger satisfaction.
After battling through all of the pandemic-era disruptions, it should be obvious to every airline that what passengers need most in those times is clear, concise and available information about their options. They need to know more about what is being done to get them to where they need to be or how they will be looked after, rather than simply being referred to a website or an overloaded helpline.
Delta spells out the options
After a weekend of chaos, the traveling public is looking for answers. On Sunday, Delta Air Lines (Delta) provided clear guidance on what the airline is doing and what options are available to its customers.
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That advice was supported by a separate open letter from Delta CEO Ed Bastian in which he apologized for the disruptions and reinforced that customers were not being abandoned.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
The disruptions from the CrowdStrike software outage resulted in more than 3,500 Delta and Delta Connection flights being canceled on the busiest weekend of the summer. With booked passenger loads of more than 90%, the airline had limited rebooking options, particularly while its systems were offline, prompting Bastian to apologize to all those passengers affected by the disruptions.
“Specifically, the issue impacted the Microsoft Windows operating system. Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular, one of our crew-tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown.”
Bastian also thanked Delta employees who had worked tirelessly over the weekend to get things back on track and do their best for the airline’s customers.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
Here’s what you can expect
On Sunday, Delta said it’s communicating directly with significantly impacted customers via email to offer guidance around submitting eligible unexpected expenses. The latest information included:
- Delta extended a travel waiver for all customers with travel booked from July 19-21. This allows customers to make a one-time change to their itinerary with the fare difference waived when rebooked travel occurs on or before July 26 in the same cabin as initially booked.
- Delta is notifying customers about delays and cancellations via the Fly Delta app and text messages and offering online rebooking options.
- It is issuing SkyMiles Program miles or a travel voucher in an amount based on the customer’s affected travels.
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Delta is covering eligible expenses resulting from the disruption, including providing:
- Meal vouchers, hotel accommodations where available, and ground transportation are being provided to impacted customers.
- Customers who have incurred hotel, meal or ground transportation expenses while in transit during this operational disruption may submit eligible expenses for reimbursement.
- The rider is that Delta does not reimburse prepaid expenses, including, but not limited to, hotel reservations at the customer’s destination, vacation experiences, lost wages, and concerts or other tickets.
- Customers whose travel has been disrupted due to a canceled or significantly delayed flight may choose to cancel their travel and receive an eCredit for the unflown portion of the trip or request a refund at delta.com/refund.
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Over 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices were affected worldwide.
While computer systems are up and running again, the challenge for all airlines is to get their aircraft and crews positioned where they need to be while accommodating all the passengers who did not fly over the weekend. The pain will likely continue this week, so it is vital that airlines keep their passengers informed, as Delta did today.