Biden opens investigation into major U.S. airline after canceling thousands of flights
Buttigieg: 'All passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld'
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced Tuesday that the department would be opening an investigation into Delta Air Lines due to the company canceling thousands of flights since Friday.
Buttigieg noted in his announcement of the probe into Delta that the goal was to “ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions,” according to his post on X. FlightAware and travel-data provider CiriumMore have recorded more than 6,600 cancellations since the outage began, The Associated Press reported.
“All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld,” Buttigieg wrote on X.
.@USDOT has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.
All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) July 23, 2024
On Saturday, the airline reported 1,208 flights canceled throughout the U.S., with another 1,386 total cancellations on Sunday, 1,160 canceled on Monday and 476 canceled on Tuesday, according to data from FlightAware.
Delta has struggled to resume its normal flight schedule following a massive CrowdStrike IT outage that halted systems at airports, banks and airlines on Friday. American Airlines, Delta and United all asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a global ground stop on all flights following the outage, according to ABC News.
The outage was caused by a software issue from a “content update for Windows hosts” and did not affect Mac or Linux hosts, according to a statement from CrowdStrike.
The airline company stated nearly half of its technology systems run on Microsoft Windows, which was hit by the outage and affected the tool the airline uses to schedule pilots and flight attendants, the AP reported. Due to the issue, the systems couldn’t keep up with overloaded volumes of changes.
“We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable,” a Delta spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they have come to expect from Delta.”
The company stated that they would be cooperating with the investigation.
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