Delta Flight Cancellations Continue as System Recovers After Outage

ATLANTA, GA — Delta's woes continued Tuesday as the airline recovered from a major system-wide failure that grounded flights across the world Monday morning before limited departures resumed and the company reported a significant number of cancellations.

As of 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, the airline announced it had cancelled more than 500 flights as it worked to resume operations. Passengers traveling to the airport are urged to check their flight status online and should expect delays and cancellations. More than 1,600 flights have departed.

The company is offering a travel waiver that has been extended to customers traveling on Tuesday, Aug. 9. Flights can be rebooked online. Customers who experienced a delay of greater than three hours or a cancelled flight are eligible to a $200 travel voucher.

Delta also announced that any unaccompanied minors that have not yet begun travel will not be accepted until Wednesday. They will be allowed to book without a fee at a later date.

The system-wide outage that the company experienced Monday started with a power outage in Atlanta around 2:30 a.m. In a statement, Georgia Power said the company experienced an "equipment failure" that caused the outage.

Customers all the way from Tokyo to San Francisco complained on Twitter that they were stranded at airports.

On Monday, the company reported canceling around 1,000 flights. The outage and extensive cancellations forced Delta CEO Ed Bastian to apologize to customers.

Delta offers more than 15,000 flights daily and serves nearly 180 million customers every year, according to its website. Statistics cited by the BBC say the airline is the third largest in the world in terms of passengers. The company's shares closed down 0.6 percent on Monday, reported The Financial Times.

Patch will update this report.