DOT launches investigation into Delta amid ongoing flight disruptions

The federal government launched an investigation into Delta Air Lines as it struggles to get its operation back on track, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday.

The Department of Transportation opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines, which has canceled over 4,000 flights since Friday “to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions,” Buttigieg posted on X. 

“All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld,” Buttigieg continued.

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Delta told FOX Business that it is fully cooperating with the department and is “working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta.”

The post came just one day after Buttigieg said that hundreds of complaints regarding service disruptions at Delta have been filed with the department.

Since CrowdStrike’s global tech outage temporarily hindered airline operations last week, Delta has been struggling to recover its systems and restore its operations despite its rivals getting back to normal.

Austin-based CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. said the global issue, which also impacted emergency services, banks, hospitals and other businesses, stemmed from a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”

Airline operations were halted as a result, causing 35,000 delays throughout the U.S. and 8,500 cancellations between Friday and as of 10 a.m. ET Monday, according to FlightAware spokesperson Kathleen Bangs.

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Delta had the most disruptions each day. CEO Ed Bastian said that “a significant number of applications,” including Delta’s crew tracking-related tools, rely on the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“Given that CrowdStrike and a bug in one of their applications caused us to have to essentially pause our entire operations, not just our operations, but our technology platform and reset on Friday, created a number of startup issues on a couple of very, very important applications,” Bastian said in a note Monday. 

He warned that it is still “going to take another couple of days before we’re in a position to say that… the worst is clearly behind us.” 

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Bastian previously said teams are working diligently to return to normal operations and said affected customers would receive either SkyMiles Program miles or a travel voucher.