‘We share the passengers’ frustration’ Delta pilot speaks about flight delays, cancellations

ATLANTA — A veteran pilot who represents 17,000 Delta Air Lines pilots in the Airline Pilots Association said they are doing everything possible to get more flights in the air and leave fewer passengers stranded at airports, following last week’s global technology outage.

“Delta pilots are holding their hands up, volunteering to fly on their days off to restore the operation to 100% capacity,” said Capt. Darren Hartmann, Delta ALPA (MEC) Chairman.

Since last Thursday’s flawed CrowdStrike cyber security update to a Microsoft program triggered an outage to thousands of companies, hospitals, and government agencies, thousands of airline passengers have seen their flights canceled or delayed.

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Delta has struggled more than the other major airlines to resume regular schedules.

Delta’s cancellation rate over the past two days has been around one in three flights.

Capt. Hartmann told Channel 2′s Tom Regan that the outage had a major impact on the airline’s complicated and crucial crew tracking software.

“This crew tracking technology does many things. Obviously, the location of our crews, their rested state, their hour limits, their compliance with the FAA and whether we are legal to take that trip,” Hartmann said.

He said there are a couple of possible reasons why Delta has had more difficulty that other airlines restoring its crew tracking program.

“Number one, we are more exposed to Microsoft and this CrowdStrike probably had a greater impact on us. We were in the middle of an upgrade, so that may have been another reason the impact was more significant here,” Hartmann said.

He said he and other pilots, along with Delta, are hopeful flights return to regular schedules by the end of the week.

“The good news is this. The pilots being front line leaders, they have a real desire to get this operations going in the right direction again.” Hartmann said.

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