As Delta canceled thousands of flights during an unprecedented meltdown that began late last week, travelers rushed to book pricey, last-minute tickets on other airlines that could actually get them where they needed to go. Lucky for them, Delta will foot the bill.
In a reversal, the airline confirmed Wednesday it will reimburse travelers who booked flights on other airlines as their Delta reservations fell apart. Previously, Delta had insisted for days it would not cover alternate flights on other carriers.
That's on top of all the other expenses Delta has already agreed to cover: extra hotel nights and meals for stranded flyers as well as ground transportation costs, while doling out vouchers or SkyMiles as an apology. Delta is also waiving all baggage fees – for up to three bags, including oversized or overweight luggage – through this Sunday, July 28.
“We know many customers have incurred unplanned travel expenses, including purchasing tickets on other airlines, rental cars, train tickets and more,” the airline wrote in an update Wednesday. “Delta will cover reasonable costs for additional categories of expenses” during the disruptions between July 19 and July 28. Delta hasn't explicitly defined what it considers “reasonable.”
Travelers who booked backup flights or incurred other expenses can submit requests for reimbursement at Delta's dedicated page. It's currently unclear how long it will take for these reimbursement requests to be processed.
It's a massive (yet potentially necessary) customer-friendly gesture for Delta – a way to do good by millions of frustrated flyers while starting to repair its battered reputation as the country's most reliable airline. And with the federal government now investigating the airline, it's a wise move.
What started with a global software outage last Friday snowballed into a full-blown meltdown for Delta, and Delta alone. Even as other airlines recovered from a global cybersecurity software outage, Delta's operation worsened as one of its critical crew scheduling platforms broke down. By Tuesday night, the airline had canceled 5,500 flights over a five-day span – more than all of 2018 and 2019 combined, according to federal records.
Delta was on track for a much smoother Wednesday, with under 50 cancellations midday. CEO Ed Bastian said he expects the airline to be back at 100% by Thursday.
But the saga's far from over.
With flights finally starting to run on time, millions of Americans were trying to salvage their canceled trips. There are mountains of lost bags around Delta luggage carousels around the country that the airline needs to deliver to their owners. And now, Delta needs to process refunds and reimbursement requests from the customers they left stranded for days.
In promising to cover tickets on other carriers, Delta is borrowing a page out of the playbook from the last major airline meltdown: Southwest's historic collapse over Christmas 2022.
After canceling more than 16,000 flights over the busy winter holidays, Southwest emptied its coffers to make things right. It reimbursed travelers for flights on other airlines, among many other expenses, and gave each and every flyer 25,000 points as an apology. The entire debacle cost the airline an estimated $825 million.
“I've said it before, but I can't say it enough how sorry I am for the impact these challenges have had on our employees and our customers,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said at the time. “We are taking immediate steps to address the massive inconvenience as well as the issues that contributed to it.”
For many travelers, Delta's apologies – and explanations for what went wrong – have fallen short.
The airline has been doling out vouchers or SkyMiles as an apology to members whose flights were disrupted, but just $100 or 12,000 SkyMiles or so. Bastian hasn't made a public appearance since the meltdown began … and even as the fallout continues, he flew to Paris for the Olympics on Tuesday evening. Rather than shouldering the blame, Bastian and Delta executives have solely blamed Friday's CrowdStrike outage for travelers' woes.
“While our initial efforts to stabilize the operations were difficult and frustratingly slow and complex, we have made good progress this week and the worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us,” Bastian said in a statement Wednesday.
Make no mistake: The airline was under immense pressure to step up.
On Tuesday, Department of Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced an investigation of Delta's meltdown and whether “the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.”
Federal law doesn't require airlines to cover tickets on other carriers when things go wrong. It's left up to airlines to decide how far they need to go to make things right with loyal customers.
That's what Southwest did. And while the Department of Transportation eventually slapped Southwest with a record-breaking $140 million fine, the airline only paid a quarter of that sum – in part because Southwest did more than the legal minimum.
They'll be watching closely to see if Delta does the same.
“DOT's investigation will look into how Delta is treating their customers, and we will take into account whether they've gone above and beyond what is required by law,” department spokesman Sean Manning said.