Flying Delta? If your flight has been canceled or delayed, here are your options

Cheryl McCloud, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida
·6 min read
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Delta Air Lines — and its passengers — continues to struggle in the wake of of the CrowdStrike outage that caused tech disruptions around the world Friday, July 19.

Delta and its regional subsidiary Endeavor Air together canceled nearly 4,500 flights between Friday and Sunday, and as of Tuesday morning were posting more than 200 delays and more than 400 cancellations, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

Here's how to check whether your flight has been affected and options you may have.

Check the status of your Delta flight

Check the status of your Delta flight on the airline's website. You can search by date, flight number, or originating airport and destination.

You can also check flights that have been canceled or delayed today via FlightAware.

Delta 'working around the clock' to restore operations

Delta announced Monday afternoon it was still working to get the airline's operations back on track.

“We’ve got everyone around the company working around the clock to get this operation where it needs to be,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a video message to employees on Monday.

"Across the operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as the airline works to put flight crews and aircraft back in position following the disruption."

Why is it taking Delta so long to recover from the tech outage?

"Upward of half of Delta’s IT systems worldwide are Windows based. The CrowdStrike error required Delta’s IT teams to manually repair and reboot each of the affected systems, with additional time then needed for applications to synchronize and start communicating with each other," Delta said.

"Delta’s crews are fully staffed and ready to serve our customers, but one of Delta’s most critical systems — which ensures all flights have a full crew in the right place at the right time — is deeply complex and is requiring the most time and manual support to synchronize."

Delayed or canceled Delta flight? Here's what you can do

Delta is providing information to travelers on how to manage a flight delay or cancellation occurring within 72 hours of your scheduled departure:

Trip disruptions under 120 minutes: If your trip is impacted by a delay or cancellation that is less than 120 minutes, you can check your eligibility to rebook by visiting My Trips

Trip disruptions over 120 minutes: If you experience a significantly delay (more than 120 minutes) or canceled flight, we will first try to rebook you at no additional cost. Your updated itinerary can be found in My Trips. The next section will explain your options if we are unable to rebook your flight or if the automatically updated itinerary does not fit your needs. and do our best to notify you via one or more of the following methods:

Flight delay under 120 minutes: If your trip is impacted by a delay less than 120 minutes, in most cases, the best option is to remain on your current flight and the option to change or rebook for free is not available. If you would like, you can check your eligibility to rebook within My Trips.

Managing a significantly delayed or canceled flight: If we are unable to find an alternate flight to accommodate you after a cancellation or significant delay (more than 120 minutes), or if your new itinerary no longer fits your needs, you may:

  • Adjust your itinerary in My Trips.

  • Cancel your flight to receive an eCredit for the value of the un-flown portion of your ticket.

  • Cancel your flight and request a refund of the un-flown portion of your ticket to your original form of payment.

Options Delta is offering customers affected by flight cancellations

Delta said it is "working to make it right for our customers," including:

Extending a travel waiver. Delta extended a travel waiver for all customers with travel booked from July 19-23. The waiver offers customers the ability to make a one-time change to their itinerary. The fare difference for customers will be waived when rebooked travel occurs on or before July 28, in the same cabin of service as originally booked. Customers are encouraged to manage changes to their travel via delta.com or the Fly Delta app.

Right to a refund upon request. Customers whose travel has been disrupted due to a canceled or significantly delayed flight may choose to cancel their travel and receive an eCredit for the unflown portion of the trip, or may instead request a refund for the unflown portion of the trip at delta.com/refund.

Issuing SkyMiles Program miles or a travel voucher in an amount based on the customer’s affected travels.

Covering eligible expenses resulting from this flight disruption, including providing meal vouchers, hotel accommodations where available and ground transportation.

Reimbursement of eligible expenses. Customers who have incurred hotel, meal or ground transportation expenses while in transit during this operational disruption may submit eligible expenses for reimbursement. Delta does not reimburse prepaid expenses, including but not limited to hotel reservations at the customer’s destination, vacation experiences, lost wages, concerts or other tickets.

Reaching out to customers about cancellations and rebooking options. Delta is notifying customers about delays and cancellations in their itinerary via the Fly Delta app and text message, and offering rebooking options that can be managed online.

Delta.com, Fly Delta app inundated

"While customers can monitor and manage their itineraries on Delta.com or on the Fly Delta app, these online tools have been inundated with traffic, causing intermittent performance challenges.

"Delta teams are working to stabilize those tools. Also note that our ability to respond to service messages on social media platforms such as X are limited," the company said.

Florida cities Delta Airlines serves

Delta Airlines lists service to 16 Florida cities on its website. Those cities are:

Key West - EYW

Tampa - TPA

West Palm Beach - PBI

Fort Myers - RSW

Panama City - ECP

Jacksonville - JAX

Orlando - MCO

Fort Lauderdale - FLL

Pensacola - PNS

Gainesville - GNV

Tallahassee - TLH

Destin-Fort Walton Beach - VPS

Sarasota-Bradenton - SRQ

Daytona Beach - DAB

Melbourne - MLB

Miami - MIA

Unaccompanied minor travel on pause through July 23

Unaccompanied minor travel is paused through July 23. Those already booked will not be able to travel. Please do not book new travel for unaccompanied minors.

For help with existing reservations for minors within the next 48 hours, call 800-325-8847.

What caused the global July 19 tech outage?

A software security update caused a breakdown of computer systems around the world July 19, affecting commercial flights, hospital operations, financial services, and media broadcasts.

The software update came from CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity firm. The update contained a defect that affected Microsoft's Windows Operating System, the company said.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Delta offers passengers affected by tech outage several options