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April 5, 2017: Delta cancels 300 flights due to thunderstorm

Old Apr 8, 2017, 1:28 pm
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Last edit by: Renes Points
Great explanation about Crew Tracking & Scheduling and what went wrong: Post #590

[Feel free to edit / add to the timeline of DL events.]

First waver ATL only and only 5-7 and by 11th: https://web.archive.org/web/20170406...perations.html

Second waver "all" hubs and 5-9 and by 16th: https://web.archive.org/web/20170407...perations.html

April 6th COO Gil West apology and blames "unprecedented" ( 5 hour ) storm / weather: http://news.delta.com/chief-operatin...cedented-storm

April 7 & 8 Five things to know list: http://news.delta.com/5-things-custo...tions-saturday

April 7th In midst of service fail Delta devalues SkyMiles with partners: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...000-miles.html

April 8th updates on operations: http://news.delta.com/operational-re...ontinues-today

April 12th will be $DAL earnings live and should yield more info: http://ir.delta.com/news-and-events/...s/default.aspx

April 9, 11:40 PM (EDT): What appears to be the last cancellation of the meltdown was made for DL2682/10Apr BOS-LGA (717 aircraft)

April 11th - Delta begins to pay out compensation for impacted travelers: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-air-lines-skymiles/1835970-early-april-operation-disruption-compensation.html

Other coverage of the event:

Pilots board relating to this epic fail: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/d...-atl-irop.html

Factors compounding delays/cancellations:
  • Weather in ATL April 5
  • DL terminating interline with AA
  • Delta's systems crashing/overloaded
  • DL's crew scheduling system crashed [rumor?]
  • Rumored short-term power outage in ATL A concourse caused by airport construction some time around Tuesday-Wednesday

Current delay statistics: Flightaware's live flight delay and cancellation statistics

News coverage:

BuzzFeedNews: Delta Has Canceled Thousands Of Flights And Everyone Is In Hell - No spring break is safe. (Posted on April 7, 2017, at 11:59 a.m.)

The Southampton Press: Cancelled Flight Dashes Disney Dream For Hampton Bays Marching Band (April 7, 2017 11:30 AM)

USA Today: Thousands of Delta flights canceled days after storms (Published 8:53 a.m. ET April 8, 2017)

CNN - Delta meltdown: Pilots are on hold, too (Updated 6:52 PM ET, Sat April 8, 2017)

The Wall Street Journal - Delta Struggles to Recover From Last Weeks Storms (April 9, 2017 12:23 p.m. ET)

AJC.com: Delta woes stretch into Sunday with more cancellations (11:57 a.m. Sunday, April 9, 2017)

AJC.com: Why one day of thunderstorms turned into a five-day Delta meltdown (12:01 p.m Sunday, April 9, 2017)

Detroit Free Press: Headaches continue for Delta fliers in Detroit (Published 2:26 p.m. ET April 9, 2017 Updated 5:54 p.m. ET April 9, 2017)

CNN - Delta tries to 'normalize' as flight cancellations continue (Updated 4:06 PM ET, Sun April 9, 2017)

New York Times: Storms, Though Over, Still Disrupt Delta Flights (APRIL 9, 2017)

NewsChannel5.com - Nashville Man's Body Stranded After Delta Flight Chaos (4:24 PM April 9, 2017)

CBS North Carolina: Raleigh parents upset after sons body stranded during Delta flight chaos (April 9, 2017, 8:14 pm Updated: April 10, 2017, 5:35 am)

AJC.com: Delta reassures customers as delays continue through weekend (5:53 p.m Sunday, April 9, 2017)

AJC.com: Hundreds of stranded bags left at Hartsfield-Jackson in aftermath of Delta flight cancellations (9:29 a.m. Monday, April 10, 2017)

Bloomberg: Delta Delays Drag On, Testing Passengers' Patience (April 9, 2017, 4:10 PM EDT Updated On April 10, 2017, 10:13 AM EDT)

BuzzFeedNews: Delta Suffered "Failure of Crew Tracking Systems" During Cancelled Flight Fiasco - "I feel like we are lost in the system." (Originally posted on April 11, 2017, at 3:28 p.m. Updated on April 12, 2017, at 10:38 a.m. )

Reuters (posted on BusinessInsider): Delta's profit drops 36.3% (Apr. 12, 2017, 7:20 AM)

AJC.com - Accused child rapist caught at airport when flight is delayed (7:39 p.m Thursday, April 13, 2017)
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April 5, 2017: Delta cancels 300 flights due to thunderstorm

Old Apr 8, 2017, 10:22 am
  #421  
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
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Originally Posted by Silver Meteor
Speculation...and AGAIN...only speculation.

Is Ed going to survive this. He has been conspicuously silent throughout all of this. Twice in one year...not good.

Do they need to bring Richard Anderson back in to "right" the ship.

The earnings call on Wednesday should be interesting...if not even postponed. Who knows, but obviously things are not good right now.
I was wondering this very same thing
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 10:28 am
  #422  
 
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Originally Posted by Psyduck1
How long do you think this can last? I'm starting to wonder if I'll have risk to my travel plans for Thursday.
Shoot, I have a MCO-MSP-PHX on Monday that I'm concerned about. Going to monitor today and cancel if it looks too risky.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 10:29 am
  #423  
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Originally Posted by commavia
Ha, yeah - fun times. As I've said elsewhere - I totally get Delta's calculus when they cancelled the interline. In effect, they thought the "price" they were paying - in the form of disproportionately more IRROP reaccomm's from AA - was too high for what they were getting back in return. But that's the thing about insurance policies - which is, in a sense, what interlines are: you never really know for sure what they're worth. Looking back in hindsight, while it's impossible to ever really know, I'd be curious to know - since last August's IT meltdown - how that whole 5:1 ratio of AA-to-Delta interline reaccomm's would have changed had the interline have still been there. Something tells me it would have come closer to parity.
Brett made a point in the second article, though, that IRROPS rebookings are basically free money for the receiving airline. They are seats that otherwise would have gone out empty (since they're filled at the very last minute, well after even the very-last-minute-booking business travelers), so it's no actual loss to Delta to have those seats filled.

Brett's point was that this was a simple money grab: Delta gambled that they could sell those seats to AA (and UA) at a higher price and pad their margins even more...and that was a gamble that they lost with AA (though they did win with UA).

Originally Posted by commavia
Now in this case, I totally get that AA's flights - especially in and out of ATL - are probably all full anyway given spring break and Delta flyers self-booking onto AA. But that said, regardless of what the financial analysts at headquarters concluded, I'm quite sure that Delta's operations people - gate and res agents - would love the option of even just a few seats on AA today, especially since, as already stated, the airline that most overlaps Delta in and around ATL in the southeastern U.S. is AA. With thousands of people disrupted, every seat helps.
Sure, AA's flights out of ATL were full, but while ATL bore (and is bearing) the brunt of DL's operational failure, don't forget that there are thousands of people stranded elsewhere. I myself had a relatively short delay in DFW but could easily have been rebooked on one of the several DFW-SGF AA non-stops (thus freeing up a seat into and out of ATL), and the tremendous strain that is going on at DCA could be significantly mitigated by moving people to AA's extensive network at that airport.

Last edited by jackal; Apr 8, 2017 at 10:34 am
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 10:39 am
  #424  
 
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Originally Posted by jackal
Brett's point was that this was a simple money grab: Delta gambled that they could sell those seats to AA (and UA) at a higher price and pad their margins even more...and that was a gamble that they lost with AA (though they did win with UA).
As a very smart poster somewhere else put it at the time (paraphrasing): "Delta cancelled their flood insurance because it had been years since they saw a flood."

Originally Posted by jackal
Sure, AA's flights out of ATL were full, but while ATL bore (and is bearing) the brunt of DL's operational failure, don't forget that there are thousands of people stranded elsewhere. I myself had a relatively short delay in DFW but could easily have been rebooked on one of the several DFW-SGF AA non-stops (thus freeing up a seat into and out of ATL), and the tremendous strain that is going on at DCA could be significantly mitigated by moving people to AA's extensive network at that airport.
Absolutely right. As you accurately point out, even setting aside the other hubs, and with respect to ATL, a lot of people affected - in fact, the ones affected worst - are connecting over ATL between two spokes. At least some of those people could have been reaccommodated on AA in addition to United.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:12 am
  #425  
 
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I'm not even connecting through ATL (ABQ to SLC) and my flight got cancelled this morning....
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:22 am
  #426  
 
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This was last night (fri) at MCI. Lots of bags without a place to go
[img]webkit-fake-url://e1d6ee39-a760-4c90-8fc1-c07b63016766/imagejpeg[/img]
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:37 am
  #427  
 
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Here is an email for the AJC business columnist [email protected] If someone wants to send info to him that they think is true about Delta covering up another IT meltdown.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:47 am
  #428  
 
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This is not a capacity issue anymore. It's an operational incompetence issue where they cannot staff their planes.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:47 am
  #429  
 
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Saturday, 1:46pm EDT, called and got the "all circuits are busy" message.
Wow.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 11:52 am
  #430  
 
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Originally Posted by Spent_All_My_Miles
Saturday, 1:46pm EDT, called and got the "all circuits are busy" message.
Wow.
I've been on hold for 3hrs 14mins.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 12:18 pm
  #431  
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
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Originally Posted by WWads
ATL-LHR should be fine. The international flights are usually the first priority during IRROPS, and none were cancelled yesterday. Getting to ATL might be tricky, but things are a little better today than yesterday. As long as your XXX-ATL flight isn't cancelled, you should hopefully be Ok.



Delta could in theory just pay the full walkup fare, right? That's what they should be doing at this point.

The massive delays and cancellations by Delta this week made me almost miss my international connection (also a Delta flight) out of Atlanta. While the in flight crew was sympathetic, none of the Delta gate agents or reservations staff seemed to care. I made the international connection only because I got lucky sprinting from terminal to terminal and with the international leg departing a little late also.

Delta's problems with understaffed crew are not the only reason for their delays. In my case, after passengers finally got a plane and crew and we had all boarded, we learned we were being delayed longer because Delta did not think the flight was full enough to justify their fuel expense. So we waited even longer for Delta to draw new passengers from elsewhere in the airport. Delta seems to want to blame the weather, but these problems are due to Delta's choices.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 12:33 pm
  #432  
 
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Originally Posted by Spent_All_My_Miles
Saturday, 1:46pm EDT, called and got the "all circuits are busy" message.
Wow.
Ditto. "All circuits are busy. Please try again later. Announcement 865-4 <hangs up>"
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 12:37 pm
  #433  
 
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Originally Posted by travels2
The massive delays and cancellations by Delta this week made me almost miss my international connection (also a Delta flight) out of Atlanta. While the in flight crew was sympathetic, none of the Delta gate agents or reservations staff seemed to care. I made the international connection only because I got lucky sprinting from terminal to terminal and with the international leg departing a little late also.

Delta's problems with understaffed crew are not the only reason for their delays. In my case, after passengers finally got a plane and crew and we had all boarded, we learned we were being delayed longer because Delta did not think the flight was full enough to justify their fuel expense. So we waited even longer for Delta to draw new passengers from elsewhere in the airport. Delta seems to want to blame the weather, but these problems are due to Delta's choices.
Did the pilots say that? I'd think they wanted to fill the plane because so many people were stuck in the airport, it could be worth delaying the flight to get more passengers out of there.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 12:43 pm
  #434  
 
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Originally Posted by estedman
Here is an email for the AJC business columnist [email protected] If someone wants to send info to him that they think is true about Delta covering up another IT meltdown.
I'm not saying I don't believe this isn't something bigger...but I overheard some DL employees the other day (2 GA, 3 FA's, 2 Pilots all talking at the gate) before they were to work my cancelled flight, and they seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of a systems meltdown, but rather how they were out of place in terms of positioning (which I guess...could lead you to the systems meltdown route). One pilot timed out about 30 mins before we were supposed to depart, so they cancelled it.

I always wonder how airlines recover from big system shocks like winter storms/such so quickly without something like this happening. If everybody everywhere is out of place and everybody has different legal/illegal time schedules I could definitely see how the problem would just keep compounding.

That being said, if this truly is a system failure, that's something that needs to get wired to the press people ASAP, frankly I've been a loyal DL guy these past 2 years but the past 2 days have really made me think twice about flying them in the future, after I was already involved in the last meltdown 2 months ago.
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Old Apr 8, 2017, 12:52 pm
  #435  
 
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has any body heard of what potential compensation is for people affected? My mother basically got a 17 hour round trip tour of Atlanta on Thursday, a return to RDU airport on Friday where she waited in line 3+ hours just to be told to come back on Monday- flight was delayed to the point she would miss her connection in MSP (4 day total delay) - luckily for us this was on her way home and she isn't missing anything important, other than just being put through the ringer.....
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