Travelers at MSP Airport deal with ongoing cancellations, delays
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A technology outage on Friday brought airports around the country to a screeching halt and travelers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are still experiencing flight cancellations and delays.
Here’s what we know about the outage
The CEO of the cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike posted on X that the defect came from an update for Windows users, noting the issue was not a security incident or cyberattack.
The outage left users around the world unable to access its cloud computing platforms and caused major problems for banks, airlines, media outlets, and others.
Delays, cancellations at MSP on Monday
As of 10:45 a.m., 81 arriving flights and 48 departing flights had been canceled at MSP. Meanwhile, 25 arrivals and 32 departures had been delayed, but 415 arrivals and 427 departures had been on time, according to MSP's website.
Nearly all the canceled flights out of MSP on Monday are on Delta Air Lines. The airline said in an update Sunday afternoon that more than 3,500 Delta and Delta connection flights were canceled through Saturday.
What is Delta Air Lines saying?
Delta Air Lines said the outage affected their operations system-wide.
In a statement on Sunday, the company explained why the outage heavily impacted its operations: "Specifically, the issue impacted the Microsoft Windows operating system. Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular, one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown."
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the disruption happened on one of the busiest travel weekends of the summer, with 90% of seats booked, limiting the airline's rebooking abilities.
The company says it has issued meal vouchers, hotel accommodations, and transportation where available. However, several Delta passengers claim they were denied those accommodations and instead directed to the airline's website for information on reimbursements.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says his office continues to receive complaints about Delta disruptions and what he says are "unacceptable customer service conditions."
"No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to a customer service agent," Buttigieg said in a post on X.
He continued that Delta must provide prompt refunds to the customers who choose not to rebook and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to customers affected by the delays and cancellations.
Many people decided to drive to and from their destinations by using rental cars. FOX 9 checked the rental site Orbitz, which showed there were no rental cars available to pick up from the Twin Cities area on Monday.
While hotel rooms are still available, they will cost you, with the cheapest room available near the airport at over $100 on Monday night.
There is still no word on when Delta Air Lines systems will be fully operational.