Delta CEO Ed Bastian is speaking next thousands of flight cancellations left passengers stranded, delayed and without luggage.
In a memo Early Wednesday morning, Bastian told customers he hoped the worst was over and systems should be up after last week's end. CrowdStrike Outage that affected one of Delta's main means of crew tracking. Bastian also said in the memo that he has read frustrated customer emails and apologized to those affected.
“While our initial efforts to stabilize operations were difficult and frustratingly slow and complex, we have made good progress this week and the worst impacts of the disruption caused by CrowdStrike are clearly behind us,” Bastian wrote. “We anticipate cancellations on Wednesday to be minimal. Thursday is expected to be a normal day, with the airline fully recovered and operating at a traditional level of reliability.”
Regarding Wednesday afternoonDelta had canceled 41 flights — just 1% of its total for the day — and delayed 513. By comparison, on Tuesday, the airline had canceled 511 flights and delayed a whopping 1,685.
On Wednesday, the same day his memo was released, Bastian arrived in Paris ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, where Delta is the official airline for Team USA.
“Eddie delayed this long-planned business trip until he was convinced the airline was well on its way to recovery,” Delta said CNN in a statement. “As of Wednesday morning, Delta operations were returning to normal. Ed remains fully engaged with senior operations management.”
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The airline said it has continued to provide affected customers with meals, accommodations and ground transportation, in addition to vouchers, refunds and SkyMiles.
Delta was down up 9% year over year as of Wednesday afternoon.