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Massive Glitch Sends Delta Airlines Into A Worldwide Meltdown

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Ted Goodman Contributor
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Delta Air Lines experienced a massive computer system crash Monday morning, stranding passengers at airports around the word.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the disturbance occurred after a power outage at their headquarters in Atlanta at about 2:30 a.m. local time. The outage caused all Delta flights to be grounded, and will continue to result in flight delays and cancellations worldwide.

Delta, the second largest U.S. airline if measured by traffic, said that their information technology team was working to resolve the problem and that limited departures were resuming. Delta warned on its website that cancellations and delays would continue, and that there may be some delay in the display of accurate flight status information as well.

Delta said earlier in the morning in a statement that, “our systems are down everywhere.” They also said that, “While the problems delayed planes awaiting departure, flights en route were operating normally.”

Passengers expressed frustration over Twitter:

While the ground stop of all flights has ended, the company said at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time that it anticipates “large-scale cancellations today” and said it would offer refunds or fee-free schedule changes to customers traveling through Friday.

In spite of being grounded, Delta Air Lines enjoyed a strong second quarter and posted 4.1% growth in earnings because of decreased fuel costs. Glitches aside, the airline industry is adversely affected by terrorist concerns and travel warnings realted to the Zika virus. Major computer glitches have also affected Southwest Airlines and British Airways this summer, adding to the industry disaster.

Shares of Delta Air Lines stock fell 1.3% to $37.20 on Monday morning following the global computer outage. The price is expected to recover as news that the total ground stoppage is ending.

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