TLDR: This is next level and I'm not sure that DL can fix it on the fly after what I've witnessed.

Giving a quick boots-on-the-ground trip report from my experiences today for my family. I was scheduled to fly ORD-ATL in the late morning. My (barely) minor kids were scheduled to fly DFW-ATL in the late morning as well. Both trips were coming off of a JAL flight from HND (two separate tickets).

Their story first. The plane was on the ground and there were flight attendants. No pilots. A rolling delay ensued and after 2 hours, DL scrubbed the flight. One kid was rebooked on a flight scheduled to leave at 10p and the other was rebooked for tomorrow. I was able to book WN flights from LUV and got them ubered over there... and hopefully they'll get home around 11p for $350 each. Update while typing: Their plane was delayed 2 hours and they'd miss the connection... so now they're on the nonstop to ATL.

Mine: I was in paid F. ORD-ATL was cx about 2 hours ahead of the flight. I was initially rebooked for a flight arriving at midnight on Tuesday. In the time it took me to go from ORD T5-T2 to catch an uber to a hotel, I managed to get on a ORD-DTW-ATL itinerary that had a 5 hour layover in DTW. At the gate in ORD, I asked if I could be placed on an earlier standby... this didn't appear in the app, but I had a paper seat request slip. I noticed delays are getting long in DTW and I went to the skyclub to get on an even earlier standby... the agent seemed to be having a lot of difficulty and a lot of mumbling. I went to the gate and in the time it took to walk, my app showed me ending the trip in DTW. The gate agent told me that they were oversold due to payload optimization (on a 757 from DTW-ATL????). Despite being #4 on the list, he told me I had no chance of getting on. I pointed out the app and he told me that I had been removed from the late evening flight and suggested I go to the skyclub to get it fixed.

The staff in the A18 skyclub were pretty... umm... salty. The agent started was super condescending and unbelievably rude. She finally reinstated my ticket but she also removed my standby and bounced me back to coach. While I worked to go to a different skyclub or agent to start over, I kept hitting "find alternate flights" and was put on one that was in the "(not so) happy middle" between the earlier flight and the late evening one I had been on with a seat in F. Subsequently, my app glitched out and I had no visible boarding passes within the app. Fortunately, a nearby gate agent was able willing to print a new boarding pass.

The skyclubs in DTW are all full. The line for the help desk at A18 is at least an hour long. The staff are generally professional, but are clearly over it. Customers are handling this remarkably well. But I simply don't see how DL gets this fixed without a significant flight drawdown. There's also going to be some big money floating out there along with bonus miles... there is absolutely no way DL can reasonably provide goodwill compensation. I'm not even sure how they're going to process claims (like food, ubers, hotels, and even making my own flight arrangements).