Air travel

How passengers are faring as fallout of global tech outage continues

Delta Air Lines said that flight cancellations continued as the airline tried to recover its systems and restore operations.

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The airline chaos continues into Monday, after the CrowdStrike outage last week.

Delta Air Lines is still seeing significant delays across the country.

At around 3:30 p.m., Miami International Airport experienced 45 cancellations in 24 hours, and Fort Lauderdale International Airport experienced 37 cancellations in 24 hours, according to FlightAware. The majority of cancellations are with Delta Airlines.

“It’s been the worst experience he’s ever had,” said Jaclyn Johnson, a Palm City resident.

Johnson said her husband was supposed to leave on a Delta flight out of Palm Beach to Atlanta on Sunday at 11 a.m. After a cancellation and multiple delays, he finally left at 10:40 p.m.  

“He said he had a feeling when he got on the plane that he should have just turned around," Johnson said.

When he arrived in Atlanta, he arrived to another canceled flight.

“He said it was pure chaos, people got off the plane, one lady saw the line to talk to an agent and collapsed, people were sobbing on the floors," she said.

To make matters worse, his checked bag is still in limbo while he’s driving to New Orleans.

“Between the hotels and the rental cars, and not being at work, it’s a significant loss for us financially," Johnson said.

In a statement released Monday, Delta Air Lines said it's "working around the clock to get this operation where it needs to be."

The airline said that the CrowdStrike outage impacted its most critical system, which ensures all flights have a full crew at the right place and time.

As they continue trying to reboot and repair, Delta is extending a travel waiver through July 23, providing refunds, reimbursements, points and rebooking options.

Johnson’s husband was offered 6,000 points, but for Thomas Patch, he’s getting a refund.

Patch said he waited a whole day for a flight that never happened.

“There’s a long, long line, they only had a couple of people helping to solve these problems, and it’s just a pain," he said.

Mandee Adler, who spoke to NBC6 while in the car, described the airport as a "zoo."

Adler was with her family, driving more than nine hours back to South Florida after their Atlanta flight booked with Delta was delayed, delayed, and then canceled.

“It’s just unfortunate," she said. "We saw people crying in the airport, we heard people saying that they were missing funerals."

The Adlers made a reservation for a rental car that same night, only to arrive at a lot of no cars. The agents at the counter told the Adlers they would not be able to honor their reservation.

The family then had to spend the night in a hotel. Thankfully on Monday, they were able to hit the road.

“We knew about the delays when we left, and we thought they would be resolved rather quickly, but even the individuals at the airport at the rental car place said they were so shocked at how long this is going on for," Jason Adler said.

The chaos even caused their daughter Sara-Pearl to miss her internship,

“I guess there’s not much you can do in this kind of situation," she said, adding that thankfully, her boss understood.

The Adlers haven’t received any sort of reimbursement or refund, however, they were told by the airline that they can request one. The family said they tried calling but didn’t want to continue waiting on the line.

Instead, the family is learning to expect the unexpected, and trying to use this experience as a lesson in patience and gratitude.

Mandee Adler said she wishes that the airline would bring a little more humanity to the travel experience.

“I understand that these companies want to make as much money as they can, but it really stinks that they can screw up your schedule in such a way and then there is no one you can get in touch with," she said.

She wished they had more people helping customers face-to-face or over the phone.

Delta did not provide a timeline for when they believe to be back up and running, business as usual.

For now, they asked that passengers continue to check their bookings and visit delta.com for updates.

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