Delta loses $125 million, canceled 4,000 flights due to storms

ATLANTA — They were storms that many people in Atlanta will never forget – and neither will Delta.

Severe storms moved in to the south Monday and created havoc for several days for tens of thousands of Delta travelers as the airline was forced to cancel 4,000 flights.

It wasn’t until Sunday when the company was able to return to normal operations.

What was the financial impact of the storms? $125 million.

Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian said it was an “impact that in my 20 years at the airline we’ve never seen.”

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"Delta currently estimates the storm will reduce its June quarter pre-tax income by $125 million," Bastian said.
He also apologized to the impacted travelers.

“We hold ourselves to a high standard and we apologize to all of our customers who were impacted by last week’s events,” continued Bastian. “I also want to thank the Delta people for working through some incredibly tough conditions to take care of our customers and reset our operation. They proved again they are the best in the business.”

Bastian acknowledged the company needs to invest in improvements to its crew scheduling and information systems, and added that the problem was not understaffing.

“There were seven different thunderstorm cells that happened at a rapid-fire basis starting from early morning to evening” last Wednesday, Bastian said. “We had the virtual shutdown of Atlanta for the better part of an entire day,” combined with busy spring break travel that left little room to rebook customers.

Information from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was used in this report.

Cox Media Group