ATLANTA — Following the global cyber outage, Delta Air Lines continued to have issues, causing delays and cancellations across the world.
"This is not a CrowdStrike issue. This is an issue where their systems are up and running, but the software that they use on a daily basis to handle crew scheduling is not playing nicely," said Andy Green, a cyber security researcher and assistant professor of cyber security at Kennesaw State University.
"And that leads me to ask the question, what kind of resiliency do you have? Because forget CrowdStrike, this could have been anything; this could have been a power outage; this could have been a hardware failure. These systems have to be resilient enough to deal with those types of issues," he continued.
Green called it a "nightmare." Darren Hartmann, a Delta captain whose been flying with the company for 26 years, said it is a "crisis."
"The Delta pilots are committed to getting their passengers to their destinations safely and as quickly as possible. That said, as we look at this event, this crisis, pilots are natural leaders. We’re typically problem solvers. We’re trying to find a way through it," said Hartman, who is also the chairman of the Delta Master Executive Council with the Airline Pilot's Association. "Delta pilots are volunteering on their days off to pick up extra flights so that we can recover the operation."
Hartmann said the software provides crucial information.
"You know where the crew is, their rested state, when they can be legal to fly again," he explained.
Hartmann explained crew members are legally required to get a certain amount of rest each week.
"So once we're off our schedule, it becomes problematic," Hartmann said, saying the crew rotations and schedules are set months in advance.
Green added that delays and cancellations can set things back and impact the hours worked.
"Those pilots and those flight attendants are still on the clock for the day. And so it could very well be that they’re scheduled for a flight later in the day. But because of earlier delays where they were getting out, or they might have gotten put on another flight, they hit their maximum flight hours for the day," Green said. "And they are restricted by federal law from flying the rest of the day, which then means they’ve got to scramble to try and find a replacement crew, and it’s a cascading failure right then and there."
Both Green and Hartmann said they have questions for the company, both focusing on the software issue.
"Why haven’t you invested in the forward-facing technology for the employees? This is very important," said Hartmann. "Because whether it’s the communication, tracking, or just the interaction between the crews on a daily basis with information that they need to operate an aircraft. It just needs to be better."
Hartmann said he is looking forward to sitting down with the company and working through the issues. Green echoed the pilot's concerns about a lack of investment in the software.
"Why is their software so problematic right now? I get that the pipeline of moving people around—that’s a complex task, and this is a complex piece of software, without a doubt, but the fact that it’s not functioning properly, which is what Delta’s CEO said, that’s what I’ve got concerns about right now," Green said. "Why is their software so fragile that it could not take a shutdown, unscheduled to be sure, but then why could it not spin up and start going back to work properly?"
Green added that Delta has "some hard questions" to address once they get on the other side of this "immediate crisis."
Delta's CEO, Ed Bastian, issued the following statement on Sunday:
Like many companies worldwide, Delta was impacted on Friday morning by an outside vendor technology issue, which prompted us to pause flying while our systems were offline.
The pause in our operation resulted in more than 3,500 Delta and Delta Connection flights cancelled through Saturday. Cancellations continue on Sunday as Delta’s teams work to recover our systems and restore our operation. Canceling a flight is always a last resort, and something we don't take lightly.
The technology issue occurred on the busiest travel weekend of the summer, with our booked loads exceeding 90%, limiting our reaccommodation capabilities. I want to apologize to every one of you who have been impacted by these events. Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted.
Please know that Delta’s entire team of the best professionals in the business have been working around the clock to safely get you where you need to go, and restore the reliable, on-time experience you've come to expect when you fly with us.
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. Our teams have been working around the clock to recover and restore full functionality.
We have issued a travel waiver to enable you to make a change to your itinerary at no charge. I encourage you to take advantage of that flexibility if possible. In addition, for those whose flights have been impacted, we continue to offer meal vouchers, hotel accommodations and transportation where available. And as a gesture of apology, we’re also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers. We will continue to keep you informed via delta.com and the Fly Delta app for the latest information on your itinerary.
I want to thank Delta’s employees, who have been working tirelessly across our system to restore our best-in-class operation and take care of you during a very challenging situation.
Thank you for your patience as we work through these issues, restore our operation and return to the reliability you expect from Delta.