Oregonians facing Delta flight delay 'nightmare' out of state after outage

"My flight ended up getting delayed around 10 times," said Pauline Petersen, who has been stuck in Minneapolis since Sunday.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — As the airline industry continues to largely bounce back from a major tech outage last week that interrupted flights across the country, Delta is continuing to struggle to get customers back on track.

KOIN 6 News spoke with two Oregonians who are now stuck out of state after Delta gave them delay after delay.

"My flight ended up getting delayed around 10 times," said Pauline Petersen, who has been stuck in Minneapolis since Sunday. "There was lots of info and help desks for Delta around the airport. As I went to each gate I saw there was over 200 people in each of those lines."

Petersen said she also saw the baggage claim filled to the brim. She called Delta for help.

"It wasn't really clear on what would be reimbursed," she said.

Another Oregonian, Becky Jacobs, said she's just trying to get home after a trip to Florida.

"Well, since Sunday, it's just kind of been a nightmare," Jacobs said. "They have rescheduled me a fourth time to a flight tomorrow, but I don't have a whole lot of hope that that flight is going to take off."

Jacobs said she can't seem to get through to anyone at Delta.

"They say you can request reimbursement, but nobody's there. Half of the Delta Airlines agents are denying that this is their responsibility."

Jacobs has also been trying to get her luggage back but said that's looking unlikely.

"They've just flat out told me, 'Look, we cannot get your bags back to you. You're just stuck. You're stuck without your essential medication. Sorry about your luck.'"

Petersen and Jacobs are not the only ones having trouble with Delta lately. In fact, it's gotten so bad that U.S. regulators are now investigating why the airline has seemingly failed to recover as quickly as others.

This comes after many airlines and other companies were impacted by a tech outage caused by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike after it sent an erroneous update to 8 million Microsoft computers around the globe on Friday.

While many airlines have bounced back since then, Delta is still struggling. The Atlanta-based company and its partners have canceled more than 6,500 flights since the outage, according to the Associated Press. That's far more than other airlines.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the investigation into “how it could be that days after the other airlines are back to normal, Delta is still canceling hundreds of flights.”

Buttigieg also vowed to look into Delta's customer service, calling out reports of exorbitantly long lines and minors stranded at airports as "unacceptable."

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate committee that oversees airlines, has also called out Delta in a letter to the company's CEO Ed Bastian. She alleged the company isn't complying with a law that Congress passed in May regarding passenger rights.

“While the technology outage was clearly not caused by Delta or any airline, I am nevertheless concerned that Delta is failing to meet the moment and adequately protect the needs of passengers,” Cantwell wrote.

KOIN 6 News reached out to Delta for comment but they did not respond in time for publication. However, in a statement to the Associated Press, a Delta spokesperson said the company is cooperating with the investigation:

“We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable. Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation said it received about 3,000 complaints about Delta and that roughly half a million of their customers were estimated to have been impacted.