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Thousands of flights are cancelled as Delta Air Lines (DAL.US) faces an investigation in the U.S. due to a computer system failure.

AInvestTuesday, Jul 23, 2024 9:50 am ET
1min read

Delta Air Lines (DAL.US) is under investigation by US authorities after thousands of flights were cancelled due to technical issues. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted on Tuesday that the Department of Transportation has opened an investigation "to ensure that the airline is complying with the law and taking care of passengers during the ongoing widespread disruptions."

The situation adds to the airline's woes, as it said on Monday that it expected cancellations to continue into later this week. Among major US airlines, Delta's situation is the worst. On Friday, a cyberattack by CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD.US) disrupted systems in multiple industries worldwide, though most other airlines were back to normal operations by the weekend.

Delta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The airline said in a statement Monday that it was "working around the clock" to restore operations, as more than half of its global IT systems rely on Microsoft (MSFT.US) Windows operating system, which was also affected by the software company's bug.

As of Tuesday morning, Delta had cancelled 418 flights, or 12% of its daily schedule, according to FlightAware.com, a tracking service. That brings the total number of cancellations since Friday's outage to about 5,400.

In contrast, rivals American Airlines (AAL.US), United Continental (UAL.US) and Southwest (LUV.US) had cancelled fewer than 100 flights each on Tuesday.

The airline's problems stem from the impact of the power outage on its internal systems, which are used to manage changes to many flights and its crews. That has caused a ripple effect, preventing Delta from matching crews and planes.

At the time of writing, the company was down 0.55 per cent.

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