‘Just shocking’: Delta passengers tell of airport agony and honeymoon travel woes during tech meltdown

(CNN) — J.R. Reed’s three kids were scattered in different states across the country this week. They all had tickets to get home — on Delta.

But they couldn’t even get onto planes. Delta paused its unaccompanied minors program during the airline’s meltdown in the wake of the global tech outage that started late last week.

“Delta flew my kids out and won’t fly them home,” said Reed, a resident of Atlanta. He told CNN he wasn’t notified of the minors program embargo.

His eldest, 15, was stuck in the Charlotte airport for 12 hours. His middle child, 12, stayed stranded in New York’s LaGuardia Airport. His youngest, 10, was in Orlando after flying solo for the first time.

Reed eventually resorted to buying a ticket to New York himself to pick up his middle child, while his sister bought a ticket to Atlanta to bring home his youngest. He then arranged for a car to pick up his eldest son and bring him back to Atlanta. Later, he told CNN in an update, Delta refunded his New York ticket, and his sister found an Orlando agent who allowed his youngest child to fly home on Wednesday when the embargo was lifted.

“As soon as Delta made the decision to not honor any child tickets flying by themselves, their first priority should have been rebooking those passengers, and they didn’t care,” he added.

A Delta representative said in an email to CNN that the airline embargoed unaccompanied minor travel beginning July 19 to keep them from being separated from their caregivers should their flights be canceled or delayed due to the outage.

“We take seriously the trust caregivers place in us with their children’s travel, and sincerely apologize that that trust was compromised through confusion around the embargo,” the company said.

Reed is a longtime Delta loyalist who achieved “Million Miler” status. He’s seen his share of technology-related disruptions with the airline, but he described its handling of the fallout from the CrowdStrike outage as “the worst ever.”

Similar tales of frustration and fury are mounting as Delta Air Lines lags behind other airlines in recovering from the global tech meltdown that swept across the world last week, prompting Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to launch an investigation into Delta. With the number of delayed and canceled flights hitting the thousands, he told reporters he estimated more than 500,000 passengers were affected.

Ruined plans

For newlyweds Jeremy and Kaylee Jones, the disruption upended their plans to celebrate their honeymoon on the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia.

The couple flew to Atlanta, Georgia, from Spokane, Washington, on a Delta flight and encountered no issues, they told CNN. But upon arrival Tuesday, they discovered their flight to St. Lucia was canceled due to a lack of crew.

The couple, who were married Saturday, said the flight issues caused five guests to miss the wedding, as well.

“I get that things happen,” Jones said. “This is just shocking to me that a multi-billion-dollar corporation would struggle this much to get the ball rolling again.”

In a note to customers Sunday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian apologized for the disruptions and attributed the problem to the computer program affecting its “crew tracking” software. The company followed up Monday, saying the CrowdStrike error required its technology team to manually reboot and repair impacted systems — and that additional time was still needed for the applications to sync up.

Baggage woes

The Joneses are also among thousands of passengers missing their baggage.

At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Delta’s headquarters and largest hub, thousands of pieces of luggage were lined up on the floors of baggage claim on Tuesday. The bags made it to the world’s busiest airport — but, due to delays and cancellations, their owners didn’t.

Dylan Steele, a federal worker from South Georgia, was stuck at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta since Saturday when he was supposed to travel to Washington, DC, for a conference. He told CNN on Tuesday his job requires him to fly Delta Airlines and that he was unable to pick up a flight from a different airline, forcing him to abandon his travel plans entirely.

So instead, Steele planned to head back home — without his luggage, he told CNN.

“My belongings are on the tarmac or being loaded onto a plane somewhere,” he said.

A Delta Air Lines representatives told Steele his baggage will go to D.C. without him and will be sent to his home in about a week.

“Delta, typically on a normal day, is pretty good,” he said. “The CrowdStrike glitch has caused a significant speed bump, and they’re just finding it hard to get their footing back.”

Frustration ramps up

At Hartsfield-Jackson, Delta is trying to boost staffing by mobilizing its volunteer team alongside employees from different departments to iron out the chaos.

But exasperated flyers, like Arthur Ginolfi, say Delta needs to do better to take care of their customers.

“It is frustrating to travel, but this is the worst experience I’ve ever had in my 35 years of business travel,” said Ginolfi, whose Delta flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta was originally booked for Sunday afternoon.

Ginolfi said he was forced to drive two hours back to his home in New Jersey, arriving around 2 am on Monday.

“There are lines that were unacceptable, there were people that were frustrated. I saw and I heard a lot of sad stories,” he said. “There should be some kind of compensation for this.”

He told CNN the issues have cost him a significant amount of money.

“I had to pay for parking for 12 hours, I had to pay for food, I had to pay for tolls,” he said.

Bastian also told Delta passengers in a note on Sunday that the airline would “continue to offer meal vouchers, hotel accommodations and transportation where available. And as a gesture of apology, we’re also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers.”

Included in the compensation being offered to Delta customers is a waiver that allows travelers who booked a flight from July 19 to 23 to make a one-time change to their itinerary as well as the option to request a refund for significantly delayed flights.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context.

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