Delta Air Lines

Delta Air Lines was a major American airline founded in 1924. As of October 2016, the carrier operates more than 5,400 flights per day to 319 destinations in 54 countries.

Aktivs

2022: In operation for May - 874 aircraft

Число planes operation in some airlines as of May 26, 2022. For comparison, Aeroflot's indicator in early 2022 is 243 aircraft

History

2024: Loss of $500 million due to Microsoft system failure

At the end of July 2024, Delta Air Lines announced that a massive failure in its computer systems would result in financial losses of approximately $500 million. The air carrier intends to seek compensation for damage from CrowdStrike and Microsoft, with whose software there were problems.

Delta Air Lines IT infrastructure failures began on July 19, 2024 after an unsuccessful update to CrowdStrike software. The spread of the update led to the inoperability of a huge number of airline Windows systems around the world. As a result, Delta Air Lines was effectively paralyzed. The airline has cancelled more than 5,000 flights, incurring multimillion-dollar costs. These are compensation payments, passenger accommodation costs, lost profit, payment for restoration work, etc.

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Bloomberg

Cascading failures in Delta Air Lines systems and numerous customer complaints led the Ministry transport USA to initiate a review of the carrier. This can have a negative impact on the reputation of the airline and lead to additional financial losses. Delta Air Lines says that during the restoration work, it was necessary to manually reboot about 40 thousand servers.

Pete Buttigieg, the US Secretary of Transportation, said that as part of the audit, the agency will assess how the airline "complies with the law and takes care of its passengers during ongoing widespread disruptions." The fact is that the problems that arose at Delta Air Lines led many customers into indignation. They complained they waited hours for help as the airline's phone lines became congested. Some were forced to rent cars and travel hundreds of kilometres to reach their destinations, while others said they had to wait days for more flights.^[1]

2017: Purchase of several thousand Apple mobile devices

In October 2017, it became known about Delta Air Lines plans to purchase several thousand Apple mobile devices for its flight crew. The airline is abandoning Windows gadgets.

According to the online edition MacOSKen, Delta management sent emails to its employees stating that the company will acquire 10.5-inch iPad Pro tablets and smartphones iPhone 7 Plus for 14 thousand pilots and 23 thousand flight attendants.

Delta buys tens of thousands of iPhones and iPads instead of Microsoft gadgets

The devices will be used to provide various kinds of services to passengers, gain access to instructions, etc.

In 2013, Delta announced its intentions to purchase Windows Phone smartphones for 19,000 stewards and flight attendants. A year later, the company acquired Lumia 1520 smartphones, which began to be used by personnel on board aircraft. In 2018, the Lumia 1520 will be replaced by the iPhone 7 Plus, and Microsoft Surface tablets will give way to Apple products. At the same time, the carrier promised to maintain cooperation with Microsoft.

The airline continues to maintain a strong and positive partnership with Microsoft, and some of the apps used on the iPhone 7 Plus and aimed at improving customer and employee engagement are based on the Microsoft Dynamics platform, Delta said.

Designed for pilots, the iPad Pro will come bundled with special Delta software tools, including the Jeppesen Flight Deck Pro (for flight planning) and Flight Weather View Plus (extended weather reports with turbulence forecast) apps, as well as a "content library containing detailed guidance on on-board procedures."^[2]

1972: Taking 86 hostages on a plane to Miami

On July 31, 1972, George Wright and other members of the Chernaya Liberation Army captured a DC-8 passenger plane of the American Delta airline in Miami. The terrorist dressed as a sutana and pretended to be a clergyman. He managed to carry a gun on board, hiding the weapon in the Bible.

86 people were held hostage. For their release, Wright demanded a million dollars in cash. He put forward a condition: money in small denominations should be brought by FBI agents dressed only in swimming trunks. George and his aides wanted to be confident that the agents would be unarmed. The authorities agreed. Photos of FBI agents in swimming trunks were then published by all American newspapers.

An FBI agent stripped to his underpants brings $1 million in a suitcase as a ransom for 86 hostages, Miami, July 1972.

The terrorists released the passengers, but not the crew members. The pilots were ordered to fly first to Boston, where the liner had to be refueled, and then to Algeria. The police of this country confiscated the money from Wright, but did not detain him or his friends. After that, the hijackers disappeared without a trace. Some of them were arrested in Paris in 1976. George Wright was not among them.

FBI is already desperate to find the gunman, but after 40 years, in 2011, he ventured into contact with his relatives in the US. It turned out that all these years he was hiding in Portugal, where he traded souvenirs on the beach and worked as a bouncer in a bar. There, at the age of 68, the local police took him.

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