Delta IT Issue Temporarily Grounds Flights Nationwide
In a situation reminiscent of Delta's multi-day IT outage in late 2016, Delta flights nationwide were grounded for more than an hour Tuesday night due to an IT issue. At 8:28pm ET, Delta issued the following statement:
"Delta IT teams are working diligently to address a technology issue impacting some of our systems. We have issued a Delta groundstop as we work to bring systems back up as quickly as possible. There has been no disruption or safety issue with any Delta flight currently in the air. We apologize to all customers for this inconvenience."
As of a 8:40pm ET update from the Federal Aviation Administration, the ground stop was still active for all Delta mainline flights "from the lower 48" to Atlanta (ATL), New York's Kennedy (JFK) and LaGuardia (LGA) through at least 9:45pm with a "medium" probability of being extended:
FlightRadar24 tracking showed a noticeable decrease in the number of Delta flights in the air, presumably due to the IT issue:
However, the problem didn't last as long as the FAA predicted — at least according to Delta. At 9:18pm, Delta confirmed via Twitter that the IT systems had been restored and all ground stops are lifted:
TPG's Brendan Dorsey was in Boston Logan (BOS) trying to catch a Delta flight when the nationwide ground stop occurred. The issue first affected him when he tried to check-in to the Delta lounge, which agents blamed on a power outage. Even when the Delta ground stop was lifted for Boston, Delta gate agents weren't able to scan boarding passes when boarding the plane.
Despite Delta claiming that no flights were cancelled due to the glitch, several were delayed for extended periods of time. Passengers onboard DL2492 from Las Vegas (LAS) to New York (JFK) were supposed to depart at around noon local time, but instead found themselves on an unintentional redeye. The flight departed nearly 11 hours behind schedule, landing in New York the following morning at 6:44am local time.
