Delta operations return to normal after Monday’s power outage

Delta Air Lines says its flight operations have now returned to normal after customers faced cancellations and delays this week as a result of a power outage in Atlanta on Monday morning.
The power outage caused the airline to call a ground stop on Monday morning and while flights were re-started later that day, customers continued to face delays until Thursday afternoon when operations began to return to normal.
By noon Thursday, nearly 2,200 flights had departed with more than 85% departing within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time.
Delta’s senior vice president—operations and customer centre said: “The airline is back on its feet, moving past this week’s disruption and operating normally.
“Running a reliable operation is something we pride ourselves on and frankly, that didn’t happen this week. But our teams have worked tirelessly to bring back the dependable airline our customers have known us to be and have come to expect from us.”
Delta said the issues started when a power source switch experienced a small fire which resulted in a massive failure at its Technology Command Center.
This caused the power control module to malfunction, sending a surge to a transformer outside of Delta, resulting in the loss of power.
The power was stabilised and power was restored quickly, but when this happened, critical systems and network equipment didn’t switch over to backups.
Around 300 of about 7,000 data centre components were discovered to not have been configured appropriately to avail backup power.
"In addition to restoring Delta’s systems to normal operations, Delta teams this week have been working to ensure reliable redundancies of electrical power as well as network connectivity and applications are in place," the airline said.