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Delta Cancels 530 Flights As It Recovers From Monday’s Meltdown

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Ted Goodman Contributor
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Delta Airlines cancelled 530 flights Tuesday morning, according to a company statement released at 12:30 p.m. EST.

Delta initially announced it was cancelling about 300 flights Tuesday morning, in statement released at 8:30 a.m. EST. The airlines said it cancelled the flights as it worked to “reset the operation and get crews, aircraft and other operational elements in place to take care of customers.”

Tuesday’s interruptions to America’s second largest airline can be attributed to Monday’s system-wide power outage at Delta’s headquarters in Atlanta. According to The New York Times, the outage occurred when a failed piece of electrical equipment at a facility in Atlanta triggered a shut down of airline’s computer system that manages booking, baggage and airplane communications.

The outage caused 1,000 fights to be cancelled Monday, and another 2,600 were delayed. The global system shutdown comes a month after Southwest Airlines experienced its own computer failure that caused it to ground 2,000 flights. America’s other two large carriers, American and United, experienced computer malfunctions last year.

“Leaders and employees continue to focus on promptly moving departures at the airline’s Atlanta hub, the world’s busiest,” the company said.

Delta airlines employs 80,000 people worldwide with 335 destinations in 61 countries it services. The company generates about $40 billion in revenue each year, with an income of about $5.9 billion.

Delta offered refunds and $200 in travel vouchers to people whose flights were either canceled or delayed at least three hours. The airline’s CEO, Ed Bastian, posted a video Monday from a Delta operations center, where he said, “we lost power at about 2:30 this morning, which caused us to implement the ground stop that we put in place at five.”

Bastian offered an apology and an assurance, saying, “I apologize for the challenges this has created for you with your travel experience.  The Delta team is working very, very hard to restore and get these systems back as quickly as possible.”

For those flying on Delta, you can check the status of your flight here.

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