Delta lifts ground stop after computer outage; some planes departing

A 2014 photo shows the silhouette of a traveler walking past Delta Air Lines planes parked at gates of Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington. While Delta currently sells just 57 percent of its first- and business-class cabins, the company said in December that it will boost the figure to 70 percent by 2018. CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer.

A power outage early Monday that halted Delta Air Lines flights worldwide was resolved just before 9 a.m. ET, allowing some flights to resume travel.

The more than six-hour outage left thousands of customers scrambling to make their connecting flights and waiting for hours at departure gates to learn their flights’ fate. The Atlanta-based airline offered refunds to passengers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed and waived change fees for others.

The airline has not yet announced what caused the power outage, though it said it occurred in Atlanta.

Cory Christensen was scheduled to leave from Los Angeles at 12:30 a.m. Pacific Time for a business trip in D.C. As of 9 a.m., he was still in Los Angeles, missed his connecting flight in Minneapolis and still wasn’t sure he would make his business appointments on time.

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He said he’s trying to find another flight. If he can’t book one soon, he might cancel the trip and get a refund.

“I’m tired,” Christensen said. “And hungry. Pretzels and soda isn’t much to get through the night on. It feels like I just pulled an all-nighter again from my college days.”

Delta advised customers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport. At about 7 a.m., Delta said that some flight status systems, including airport screens, were incorrectly showing flights on time.

“We apologize to customers who are affected by this issue, and our teams are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible,” the airline wrote on its website.

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Delta is just the latest airline to halt services due to a technical problem. Last month, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights nationwide after many passengers couldn’t check in or board their flights because of a computer glitch. Last year, United Airlines had to delay its planes for almost two hours – affecting nearly 5,000 flights – due to a computer glitch.