Delta’s Cancellations Force Family’s Epic 25-Hour Road Trip Back to Phoenix

Delta Airlines continues to grapple with flight cancellations after last week’s technical outage.

PHOENIX — Travelers worldwide are still experiencing delays with Delta Airlines due to last week’s technical outage.

Last Friday, a faulty Crowdstrike security update led to crashes on Microsoft Windows computers.

This outage disrupted various sectors globally, including the airline industry.

Aviation data provider Cirium reports over 5,000 Delta flights have been canceled since the incident.

Annette Banuelos, traveling with her family, faced multiple changes in their flight schedule before their planned departure from Minneapolis to Phoenix. “Our flight post changed twice before we got to the airport, first one was 9:53, second one was 10:55. Last time was 2:06 that we were supposed to leave the airport,” Banuelos recounted. “They let us know the flight was canceled once we got back up there.”

Banuelos mentioned there were no answers regarding refunds or hotel compensation. “There was a line [for the service desk] past the elevators, it was just a crazy amount of people there sleeping, stuck at the airport, frustrated, tired and there was just no answers,” Banuelos said.

Given the chaos, Banuelos and her family opted for a hotel and rented a car to drive back to Phoenix, a journey lasting 25 hours. “We don’t know if we are going to get reimbursed for our hotel or our rental car, we don’t know what is going to happen,” she noted.

Another traveler, Laurie Marlowe, reported issues while traveling to Croatia with friends. Despite her frequent travels, Marlowe had not encountered such problems before. “Luckily I got my flight out on Saturday as I was supposed to,” Marlowe said. However, her friend faced delays, stuck in Detroit for four days. Marlowe also mentioned that her 18-hour flight extended to 28 hours due to the complications. She hasn’t seen her luggage in three days.

On Tuesday, Pete Buttigieg announced that the Department of Transportation is launching an investigation into Delta Airlines, focusing on why the airline did not recover as swiftly as others. Buttigieg revealed that DOT has received over 3,000 complaints specifically about Delta Airlines related to this issue.