![handle is hein.crs/goveqbv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ____
~ Research Service
Air Travel Disruptions and DOT Aviation
Consumer Protection Rules
July 25, 2024
On Friday, July 19, 2024, a faulty software update for the Windows operating system from cybersecurity
firm CrowdStrike led to outages that disrupted multiple business sectors around the world, including
airlines, banks, and health care, as well as government and emergency services.
The technology outage appeared to have hit airlines especially hard, forcing Delta Air Lines, American
Airlines, United Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Spirit Airlines to ground flights in the United States, which
led to thousands of flight cancellations, extensive delays, and long waits at airports on Friday and over the
subsequent weekend. Flight tracking website FlightAware indicated that between July 19 and July 21,
more than 7,500 flights within, to, or from the United States were canceled, and 32,500 flights were
delayed, as reported by Aviation Daily on July 23, 2024.
The large number of flights and passengers affected is reminiscent of the Southwest Airlines service
meltdown between December 21 and December 29, 2022, which was initially caused by winter storms
and compounded by an internal breakdown of the crew-scheduling system. This led to over 16,700 flight
cancellations, affecting over 2 million passengers. Congressional hearings, a Department of
Transportation (DOT) investigation, and a subsequent $140 million fine against Southwest was part of the
federal response to this incident.
While most airlines appeared to have recovered from service disruptions and restored operations after the
weekend, Delta Air Lines continued cancelling significant numbers of flights. Delta reportedly has
canceled more than 5,500 flights since the start of the Friday outage, including at least 700 flights
canceled on Monday, July 22, 2024, accounting for about two-thirds of all cancellations worldwide that
day. As of July 24, 2024, Delta announced, [a] travel waiver, which offers customers the ability to make
a one-time change to their itinerary, or to cancel and receive a refund for the unflown portion of their
ticket upon request, is in effect for customers with travel scheduled for July 19-28. The fare difference
will be waived when rebooked travel occurs on or before August 4, in the same cabin of service as
originally booked.
On July 23, 2024, Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, sent a letter to Delta regarding the airline's operational and customer communications
problems in the wake of Friday's outage. DOT announced on the same day that it was launching an
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
IN12395
CRS INSIGHT
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/goveqbv0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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