PHL passengers caught in Delta tech glitch

Delta Air Lines grounded flights worldwide for nearly six hours Monday, snarling flights for hundreds of thousands during the busy summer travel season because of an equipment problem.

Shortly before 9 a.m., Delta said the ground stop was lifted, and limited departures were resuming, but delays and cancellations would continue. As of 1:30 p.m., Delta said it had canceled 451 flights due to a power outage, while operating about 1,679 of its nearly 6,000 scheduled for Monday.

At Philadelphia International Airport, Steven Bowles, of Allentown, arrived at 7:45 a.m. for a 10:20 a.m. Delta flight. He was flying to Atlanta and then to San Antonio, Tex. for a meeting.

But his flight was cancelled, and he rebooked on a 5:30 p.m. departure that was to get him to San Antonio at 10:15 p.m. Monday.

"I'll get there tired, but I'll get there," the safety manager said.

Delta blamed the problem on a power outage at its Atlanta hub.

The electric utility, Georgia Power, said the problem was with Delta's own equipment, called a "switchgear," and not a larger power outage. "It was due to a failed piece of equipment that they owned," said Craig Bell, spokesman for the utility. "That caused the outage. Our crews have been helping them. Power never went out in the area or across the state," he said.

"It's the perfect storm for Delta. Monday morning is the jumping off point for many road warriors so there are not a lot of spare seats on the competition," said Pace University business professor Andrew O. Coggins Jr., who teaches international management, hospitality and tourism management. "Delta will be lucky if they get caught up by Friday."

Charles Leocha, chairman of the consumer group Travelers United, suggested the glitch could have been avoided if Delta had "a backup system for their worldwide reservations network. One of the first things anyone working with computers learns is to backup data."

It was the second airline computer crash in a month.

Three weeks ago, a router failure caused Southwest Airlines to cancel some 2,300 flights over several days.

In 2015, computer problems twice grounded United Airlines flights. In April 2015, American Airlines delayed some flights when a software snafu prevented pilots from seeing some airport maps on their tablet computers.

SevOne, with offices in Newark, Del., monitors and troubleshoots the performance of information technology networks and infrastructure for customers including Comcast, Vodafone, and Lockheed Martin.

"The large global brands we work with all have very large redundancy," said Matt Goldberg, SevOne's vice president of global solutions. "Whether a power issue, internet issue, router issue, or whatever the particular issue, they have the capability to fall over to another site not geographically located in the same area."

Delta was giving refunds to passengers on canceled or "significantly delayed" flights Monday. Passengers on delayed flights could make a one-time change to their tickets without a fee, if they rebook and depart by Friday.

If passengers choose to travel after Aug. 12, the change fee will be waived, but they may have to pay the difference in air fare for a new flight.

Travelers United, the consumer group, urged Delta to give passengers up to a year to use their airline ticket funds. "Forcing passengers to change their dates of travel and upend their lives because of a Delta mishap is unreasonable," the group said. "This is a problem completely of Delta's making" and "remedies should recognize Delta's culpability and not restrict consumer rights or force them pay additional airfare or fees."

"The heavy reliance on computer reservation systems and the interconnectedness of airline schedules means that even minor outages tend to cause ripple effects that affect the network well beyond the time of the initial outage," Fitch Ratings in New York said in a note.

Delta flies 35 departures from Philadelphia, to airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City, New York and Paris.

lloyd@phillynews.com

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