Delta Power Outage Leaves Thousands of Passengers Stranded

Update 5: As of 3pm ET on Thursday, August 11, Delta reports that "flight operations have returned to normal," more than three full days after the outage was originally reported.

Update 4: Delta canceled more than 500 flights on Tuesday, August 9, after having canceled "around 1,000" during and following Monday's outage. The travel waiver now applies to Tuesday flights as well.

Update 3: If your flight was canceled or delayed more than three hours, you can request a $200 travel voucher as compensation.

Update 2: Delta CEO Ed Bastian recorded the below video message apologizing for today's outage, which resulted in more than 450 canceled flights. Delta is offering a systemwide change fee waiver, so if you'd like to make a change to a reservation for travel today, now's the time to do it.

Update: TPG reader Josh D. is currently in Athens, Greece, and was scheduled to depart at 2:10pm for New York (JFK) in business class on Delta flight 214. When he got to Athens from Santorini, Delta had combined every counter into one line because they couldn't utilize more than two computers for checking passengers in. In this case, being a business-class passenger didn't help expedite the process. Upon going through security, he realized that the 12:30pm flight hadn't lined up to leave yet, which is where the delays began. Josh's flight moved gates and didn't start boarding until 4:30pm.

The boarding process at the gate was complete chaos, with little communication and a few employees checking boarding passes and passports. Once checked, there was no boarding process by groups, instead it was a free-for-all. As of 4:50pm (9:50am ET), DL 214 had begun taxiing, and as of 5:10pm it had departed.

When Josh asked how the delay in Athens would affect his connecting flight, a Delta employee told him that everything was delayed, so it shouldn't be a problem. However, even with all of the delays, Josh did report that Delta employees were able to get snacks and drinks for travelers.

Delta has tweeted that it's cancelled approximately 300 flights as of 10:08am ET. Although systems are coming back, there are still extensive delays and cancellations.

Last month, Southwest Airlines had similar delay and cancellation issues when it faced a system outage.

Original Text: If you're flying with Delta Air Lines today, you'll want to be sure to attempt to check your flight status before heading to the airport. For a period of time, all of the carrier's flights were grounded due to a global computer system outage at its Atlanta hub. While the cause of the power outage was not immediately known, the carrier says it has no reason to believe that any sort of hacking was involved.

At around 5:05am ET this morning, Delta originally reported that that it had experienced a computer outage, but there was no indication of how severe the outage actually was. Then again at 6:55am ET, Delta issued an update saying that a power outage in its Atlanta hub that began around 2:30am was the cause, and the result was mass flight delays across all of its flights.

According to the most recent update at 8:40am ET, Delta announced that a ground stop has been lifted and limited departures are resuming. While this may sound like good news, there is still the chance for mass cancellations and long delays. So, the carrier is encouraging those traveling on its metal across the world to be prepared for those delays and cancellations. It's also telling passengers that it's having trouble providing accurate flight information at delta.com, the Fly Delta App and from Delta representatives on the phone and in airport.

Delta has also issued a travel waiver for those with ticketed flights. The waiver reads:

If your flight is canceled or significantly delayed, you are entitled to a refund. Even if your flight is not canceled, you may make a one-time change to your ticket without fee...

As you can see, this waiver is valid for all Delta flights for travel on August 8, 2016. Tickets must be reissued on or before August 12, and rebooked travel must begin no later than August 12.

Check this page on Delta's website for updates throughout the day, and stay tuned to TPG for continued coverage.

H/T: CNN