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Delta still struggling after CrowdStrike outage while American Airlines back on track

American Airlines called off almost 9% of flights on July 19, but was mostly recovered by Saturday.

When a widespread global technology outage disrupted air travel last week, it was uncertain how quickly airlines could bounce back.

Many of the weekend’s delays and cancelations resulted from an outage involving Austin-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that said the issue behind the outage, which affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, was not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue grounded hundreds of flights for major airlines like Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Fort Worth-based American Airlines.

American, which called off nearly 9% of its scheduled flights on July 19 when the outage occurred, recovered by the next day with just over 1% of its flights canceled, aviation analytics company Cirium reported.

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“Our customer is at the center of everything we do, and we thank them for their patience as our team worked together around the clock to return to normal operations just one day after the global outage,” an American spokesman wrote in an email Saturday.

DFW International Airport had nearly 5% of its total scheduled flights canceled Friday, according to data from OAG, a global travel industry platform. Dallas Love Field saw less disruption, with some Delta flights delayed or canceled throughout the weekend. Southwest Airlines said its systems were not impacted, and the Dallas-based air carrier holds 18 of the gates at the North Texas airport.

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United canceled more than 18% of its flights Friday and had a slower recovery, but was back by Sunday July 21 with a little under 6% canceled.

However, Delta is still feeling the aftermath of the outage with three straight days of over 30% of their flights canceled, according to Cirium.

John Grant, chief analyst of OAG, reported Delta continues to be the most impacted of the airlines analyzed. He reiterated that aircraft and crews on the ground don’t make companies money and the circumstances made recovery take a little bit more than airlines desired.

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“The impact of the CrowdStrike IT outage will linger on for a few more days yet, and will stay in the minds of travelers with canceled holidays for even longer,” Grant wrote. “Again, such events highlight the challenges of an industry dependent on external IT systems that can, and likely will, fail again in the future.”

Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote to customers saying cancellations are a “last resort” and something the airline doesn’t “take lightly.” The Atlanta-based airline had just reported a strong second quarter with revenue over 5% higher than the previous year for the quarter.

“Specifically, the issue impacted the Microsoft Windows operating system,” Bastian wrote. “Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown.”

Delta, like many other airlines including American, issued a travel waiver for passengers who were disrupted.

The Department of Transportation received hundreds of complaints regarding customer service and reports of disruptions involving Delta, according to a post on social media platform X, from Pete Buttigieg, U.S. transportation secretary.

“I have made clear to Delta that we will hold them to all applicable passenger protections,” Buttigieg wrote.