This week got off to a tough start for one of the world’s biggest airline. A power outage in Delta’s HQ hub, Atlanta, occurred at around 2:30 EST this morning. The resulting mayhem caused Delta’s network to suffer throughout the world. The airline was forced to begin delaying and even cancelling some of its planned flights.
According to the airline, the issue was caused by what local electric utility, Georgia Power, referred to as “a failure overnight in a piece of equipment known as switchgear.” The outage affected only Delta.
Several hours later, Delta has gotten the issue resolved, but delays and cancellations look to be the order of the day.
For their part, most passengers who’ve been affected by the outage have lauded Delta for its handling of the situation. While several flights have been cancelled, the airline is working with its customers to ensure that their travel needs are met. People impacted by the outage will be able to reschedule their flight at no cost (it’s typically a $200 fee).
As of this morning, Delta had cancelled around 300 flights. Considering that Delta typically launches about 15,000 flights a day, that’s not an awful ratio (it’s about 2 percent of the daily flights).
