The US Department of Transportation has launched an investigation into Delta Air Lines' treatment of passengers following last week's CrowdStrike outage. The outage caused widespread disruptions to 8.5 million Microsoft Windows-based systems and led to the airline canceling over 7,000 flights since Friday.
While the outage affected booking, check-in, and boarding pass processes across many airlines, most carriers have largely resumed normal operations. Delta, which uses Microsoft for more than half of its IT infrastructure, cites issues with its crew-tracking tool’s ability to process the high number of changes as the primary cause for its ongoing delays. The DOT has received numerous complaints about Delta's customer service, including long wait times and stranded passengers. Delta says it has offered travel waivers, meal vouchers, and compensation to affected travelers.
While airlines can determine their own compensation policies for flight delays, federal law mandates refunds for significant delays or flight cancellations. Southwest Airlines was fined a record $140M for a similar operational meltdown during the 2022 holiday season.
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