Local travel agent and travelers react to Delta Air Lines outage

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – On Tuesday, Delta Air Lines reached its fifth day of resolving issues caused by Friday’s global IT outage. For one Wabasha travel agent, the outage caused a disruption to her services for her customers.

“Just trying to get through to Delta is next to impossible right now,” Turning Waters Travel LLC owner Brenda Pearson said. “It’s understandable. I’ve tried Delta vacations as one of my suppliers, and a lot of it is hard to do, because they’re got such a backlog of trying to get people from the airports that they’ve been stranded at.”

According to Pearson, her business couldn’t buy any flight tickets for her customers ever since the outage. She said, “The prices have not been, let’s just say, reasonable. That’s understandable, because they’re having to dish out a lot. So, we’ll just see what it’s going to do for me next week.”

On the other hand, Pearson’s uncle and aunt, Troy and Michelle Halter, were stuck in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for 10 hours on Monday. However, the Halters shared the cancellation was a blessing in disguise, because they got stuck in a hotel with heavy rain.

“We were saying how we should probably contact the airline and see if we could get a later flight,” Michelle said. “Then, we found out our flight was cancelled.”

The Halters were travelling from Greenville, South Carolina, to their home in Mattawa, Washington. With their connecting Delta flight in Atlanta cancelled, they were among the hundreds who were stranded in the airport.

“There were a few people that were telling their story, how they had been there for four days and how delta wouldn’t really help them much,” Michelle said. “[Delta} literally said they have no staff. They have no pilots and they have no crew, because they were stuck in other states because of the glitch.”

Although the wait was long, Halters shared the staff handled everything professionally and the situation was something out of Delta’s control. “The customer service reps behind the counter were absolutely fantastic. friendly, helpful, and calm,” Troy said. “The employees themselves excelled in my opinion.”

“The employees of Delta were trying very hard to get people on different flights. They were really working hard to make people happy and keep them content all the while staying very calm. The customer service people obviously can’t do anything about the situation, but they they were able to keep people as informed as possible in a very positive and calm way. It was really impressive, because it has to be super stressful for them.”

Pearson stated unexpected situations such as this are the reason why having travel insurance is crucial, especially if the trip is expensive or if you have health challenges. She said, “The moral is if you can’t afford to lose out on the amount you invested in your vacation, you should always have some kind of travel insurance.”

The Halters shared the Delta staff bumped their flight up to first class, and felt grateful for their work during the delays and cancellations.

“Understand that it’s not the employees of the airlines that are the front faces,” Pearson said. “I pay them compliments, because they’re having to put up with a lot of stressors and we don’t know what their home life situation is. Just the words, ‘thank you and we appreciate you,’ can go a long ways when they’re having a hard day, and I guarantee if you’re nice to them, you’re most likely going to get the good service.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Delta Air Lines had cancelled nearly 500 flights on the East Coast. Since the beginning of the outages, there have been more than 6,000 flights cancelled.

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