Airlines and many of their customers labored Monday to restore travel plans to normal in the wake of last week’s worldwide cyber outage, although flight delays and cancellations at South Florida’s major airports receded amid the recovery effort.
Delta Air Lines, which is widely regarded industrywide as a top performer in customer service, appeared to be struggling the most as it canceled another 700 flights Monday morning, according to data from the tracking service FlightAware. At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where Delta is the predominant carrier at Terminal 2, lines of passengers extended out the front door.
Passenger Charles Adams, an Atlanta area resident who was visiting friends in South Florida with his girlfriend, said he was told by the airline he could not book a return flight home until Wednesday from Fort Lauderdale or Miami. Agents gave him an option of returning Tuesday via Palm Beach International Airport, but the airline would not provide any ground transportation or lodging.
Last Friday, business customers of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike saw their operations severely disrupted by a flawed software update that caused havoc among many computer systems around the U.S. and abroad. The trouble affected only CrowdStrike customers operating Microsoft Windows. The vendor stressed no cyber attacks or hacking contributed to the problem..
Thousands of airline passengers ended up stranded at airline terminals while hospitals, some banks and hotels, government agencies and a broad spectrum of businesses that are CrowdStrike customers were forced to curtail operations. The airlines affected included Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, Spirit and United. Southwest, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines were not impacted as they are not customers of the cyber-security firm.
By late Monday morning, delay and cancellation data provided by FlightAware showed a drastic reduction over the same time period last Friday. The South Florida international airport numbers shaped up this way about 5 p.m.:
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood: 253 delays / 34 cancellations
- Palm Beach: 83 delays /14 cancellations
- Miami: 439 delays/30 cancellations
Refunds available to passengers
Delta’s troubles led to a public apology from CEO Ed Bastian as well as a discussion about its situation Sunday with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“The pause in our operation resulted in more than 3,500 Delta and Delta Connection flights cancelled through Saturday,” Bastian wrote in a message to customers over the weekend. “Cancellations continue on Sunday as Delta’s teams work to recover our systems and restore our operation. Canceling a flight is always a last resort, and something we don’t take lightly.
“The technology issue occurred on the busiest travel weekend of the summer, with our booked loads exceeding 90%, limiting our re-accommodation capabilities,” Bastian added. “I want to apologize to every one of you who have been impacted by these events. Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted.”
He said the airline is issuing travel waivers to enable passengers to change their itineraries at no charge.
“In addition, for those whose flights have been impacted, we continue to offer meal vouchers, hotel accommodations and transportation where available,” Bastian said. “And as a gesture of apology, we’re also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke to the CEO about the proliferation of cancellations across the airline’s network since Friday. The DOT said it reminded Delta of its obligation to provide refunds to passengers whose flights were canceled and who don’t want to be rebooked.
“I have made clear to Delta that we expect the airline to provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to be rebooked, and free rebooking and timely reimbursements for food and overnight hotel stays to consumers affected by the delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance to all of their passengers,” Buttigieg said.
“No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to a customer service agent,” Buttigieg said. “I will ensure that our department supports Delta passengers by enforcing all applicable passenger protections.”
South Florida-based discounter Spirit Airlines, which initially indicated on its website Friday that there was little it could do for passengers because the problem was not of its own making, revised that posture and is now offering compensation.
“Spirit is working to resume normal operations as quickly and safely as possible following a global technology outage that affected Spirit’s reservation and Airport systems,” the airline said in a travel advisory to customers on Monday.
The airline is the predominant carrier in terms of passengers carried at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International.
“If your flight is cancelled, you have the option to receive a refund, reservation credit, or to be rebooked on another Spirit flight,” the advisory added. “If a Spirit flight is not available today or is delayed until the next day, meal vouchers will be issued, and we will provide hotel accommodation and ground transportation to/from the hotel to all non-local Guests as needed. If your flight has been delayed by more than 2 hours, you can be rebooked on another Spirit flight, or receive a reservation credit or a refund if you do not wish to fly. If your flight is delayed more than 3 hours, meal vouchers will be provided.”
Passengers were invited to scan a QR code at the airport, dial 833-417-5700 or visit spirit.com/help.
Who will pay for bigger fallout?
While it’s too early to assess the scope of financial losses — though some analysts have placed the global figure above $1 billion — it’s more than likely that consumers and businesses whose lives were upended by the software failure will head for the courthouse in search of compensation for losses a lot larger than the cost of an airline ticket or hotel room.
Peter K. Spillis, managing partner of the Kelley Uustal law firm in Fort Lauderdale, said Monday that people who suffered economic losses resulting from missing appointments in another city, or hospital patients whose care was dramatically disrupted, might file a “strict tort claim against CrowdStrike for whatever they were put through.”
“What about the [canceled] flight that resulted in a massive business loss?” he said. “I think people would look directly at CrowdStrike for those things.”
For businesses that hired CrowdStrike to protect and maintain their technology systems, the wording of their contracts could well govern whether they go to court or have their cases sent to arbitration.
“My expectation is there would be arbitration clauses there,” Spillis said. “Those customers would have to deal with that landscape.”
The courts, he noted, have routinely upheld mandatory arbitration clauses. “This is an interesting test case,” he said.
Many investors in CrowdStrike stock quickly entered their judgments Monday: They sent the price of the company’s stock plunging by 13.5% to $263.91, well off last Friday’s close of $304.96.
Social Security reopens offices
The Social Security Administration, which was among the largest federal agencies affected by the outage, said it reopened offices nationwide that were closed all day Friday. .
“SA offices will open for public service on Monday, 7/22,” the agency said in a note atop its website. “Staff impacted by the widespread Microsoft and CrowdStrike issues are being brought back online.”
South Florida Sun Sentinel staff photographer Joseph Cavaretta contributed to this report, which was also supplemented by The Associated Press.
