Among the many thoughts that drifted through my mind over the course of four long hours at San Diego International Airport last Friday: Delta will pay for this.
Even now, the airline and thousands of my fellow travelers are still struggling through the largest snafu in the airline’s history. I learned the hard way how bad it was when I tried to fly home on Friday, July 21: Delta canceled my flight, couldn’t book me on another flight for two days, and refused to provide accommodations, food, or reimbursement for anything. You might have learned this too if you were one of the hundreds of thousands of people scheduled to fly on Delta on any day since last Friday, when a faulty CrowdStrike update crippled computers around the globe, including the systems that organize and dispatch Delta’s flight crews.
Over the past five days, the airline has canceled more than 5,900 flights and counting. Thirty percent of Delta flights, or 833, were canceled on Monday, in addition to 46% that were delayed. As of 9 a.m. ET Tuesday, the number was 12%. (American Airlines and United Airlines only had about 2% of its flights canceled on Monday, FlightAware said.) All of this has left travelers like me stranded—and scrambling for alternative transportation, for a hotel or a place on the floor of an airport concourse, and for some kind of compensation beyond a Biscoff cookie.
Now the federal government is paying attention too. In a post on Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigeig said the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protections is looking into Delta’s “continued widespread flight disruptions,” and “reports of concerning customer service failures.” The investigation will “evolve” as the department processes a high volume of consumer complaints, it said in a statement.
“We have made clear to Delta that they must take care of their passengers and their customer service commitments,” Buttigieg said 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.”
In another post on Sunday, Buttigeig said he had spoken with Delta CEO Ed Bastian, and said that Delta must provide prompt refunds to customers who do not want rebooked flights and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays for those affected by the delays.
Bastian said in a letter on Sunday that Delta is allowing travelers booked on flights between Friday and Tuesday to change their flights once without cost, and was offering meal vouchers, hotel accommodation, and transportation where available. “And as a gesture of apology, we’re also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers,” he wrote.
Still, I wondered, how would those of us with canceled flights, and those of us who already paid for other flights or rentals or hotels, get compensated in cash?
Before ending up on an endless loop on Delta’s reservations hotline, and before trying to reach a customer service agent through the app or by phone—some have waited more than seven musak-filled hours to speak to a human—I turned to the Delta subreddit. One of the top posts, titled simply “I hope this helps,” was written on Sunday by a user named makeupyourmind_j who purports to be a customer service employee.
”There’s 9k on queue in our system right now (honestly my hands are already shaking),” the post begins, “so here’s some helpful links that might help you.”
- Refund due to disruption: https://www.delta.com/refund-form/
- Want to complain or ask for compensation? File a formal complaint (by clicking on “Comments & Complaints” and “Submit feedback” here): https://www.delta.com/us/en/need-help/overview
- Reimbursement for Hotel, Meal, and Transportation: https://www.delta.com/reimbursement/
- Baggage concern: https://www.delta.com/us/en/baggage/delayed-lost-damaged-baggage
- Meal or hotel vouchers can’t be issued by phone, according to the customer service agent, “so please if you’re at the airport go directly to [the] Delta Help desk.”
When ultimately reached by phone, a Delta customer service agent told me she could issue a refund request as well as a Delta voucher for $125. But for additional compensation, she said I would need to use the same request forms mentioned on Reddit.
“And if your claim is denied,” she said, her voice riddled with exhaustion, “call us again.”
Keep in mind that if you are filling out one of the online request forms, first prepare all the receipts and documentation you think you’ll need: the page will expire after a few minutes and send you back to delta.com. And note that for reimbursements for hotels, meals, and transportation, Delta’s website allows customers to submit a maximum total of 10 expenses.
The reimbursement form indicates what Delta does not cover: “prepaid expenses,” hotel or transportation expenses for stays outside of the city of disruption, lost wages, child or pet care, or Delta Sky Club or other lounge fees.
As other users suggested, impacted travelers could also consider contacting their travel insurance providers or credit card companies, if they used one to buy their ticket. The DOT has also urged impacted travelers to file complaints directly with the agency. “We will follow up,” Buttigeig said on Tuesday.
In spite of all the frustration, many Reddit commenters—some of whom had spent thousands on planned trips and alternative arrangements, or who spent a few nights in the airport—expressed empathy for stranded passengers and overwhelmed Delta staff.
“I can’t imagine the negativity you’re having to deal with,” one user wrote. “I would also like to say thank you to all of the guerilla/rogue Delta employees who are going here on Reddit and providing information and resources,” another added.
On Monday, the agent replied on Reddit.
“We thought yesterday was bad and today looks worse,” they wrote. “We are incredibly frustrated. We want to help. Our tools are not all working yet either, there are some things we need quick access to and we have to do things the “old fashioned way” and it takes longer plus there are tons of time spent just trying to find a flight that is open and will work. Manually reissuing tickets . . . especially agency tickets is not something everyone can do. It’s an enormous amount of work.”
Landing in October: new federal rules
Airlines initially treated the outage on Friday as an event inherently outside their control, a so-called force majeure or act of God, for which their only obligation to passengers was free rebookings. However, the Transportation Department said on Friday that it considered the software outage to be within airlines’ control, and that U.S.-based airlines must provide affected customers compensation for any flight disruptions.
For decades, policies around flight refunds have been left up to each airline. But after the Southwest Airlines meltdown over Christmas of 2022, which left more than two million travelers stranded, the DOT began developing new rules around delays and cancellations. The first rule requires airlines to automatically and promptly refund customers the full ticket price when flights are “significantly” disrupted or delayed, which is defined as three hours for a domestic flight and six hours for an international flight.
The rules specify that airlines “must provide refunds in cash or whatever original payment method the individual used,” and only provide vouchers or travel credits if requested. By “prompt,” the department means “within seven business days of refunds becoming due for credit card purchases and 20 calendar days for other payment methods.” Southwest took weeks, if not months, to process all refund requests following its outage.
Still, the new rules, which were first announced in April, have yet to take effect. According to a DOT spokesperson, the effective compliance date for the refund requirements is October 28, 2024. For now, the agency offers a dashboard of cancellation and delay policies for all the major US airlines at flightrights.gov.
The new federal rules also do not address compensation for other transportation, hotel costs, or inconveniences incurred by disrupted travel—costs that thousands of Delta customers are now grappling with. But in April, the agency said that “DOT is also pursuing rulemakings that would “[p]ropose to make passenger compensation and amenities mandatory so that travelers are taken care of when airlines cause flight delays or cancellations.”
In another post on Tuesday on the Delta subreddit, a pilot chimed in.
“I love this company,” they wrote. “That being said, I have never seen this kind of disorganization in my life. As I understand our crew-tracking software was hit hard by the IT outage and I first hand know our trackers have no idea where many of us are, to this minute. I don’t blame them, I don’t blame our front line employees, I don’t blame our IT professionals trying to suture this gushing wound.”
“So to all the Delta people on this subreddit, I’m sorry. I obviously cannot begin to fathom the frustration and trials you all have faced. But us employees are incredibly frustrated as well that our “Great” and “Most Awarded” Air Line has fallen to its knees disappointing and inconveniencing so many of you. I have great pride in my fellow crew members and Frontline employees. But I am not as proud to be a pilot for Delta Air Lines right now. You all deserve so much better.”