US is investigating Delta's flight cancellations and faltering response to global tech outage

U.S. regulators are investigating why Delta Air Lines failed to recover as quickly as other airlines from a global technology breakdown and whether Delta's treatment of passengers stranded by canceled and delayed flights violated federal rules.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday announced the investigation into Delta's response to the outage, which he said has affected more than half a million of the airline's passengers.

A Delta official said the airline expects to return to normal operations by the end of the week.

Delta and its Delta Connection partners canceled more than 500 flights Tuesday. That was down by more than half from Monday but still accounted for nearly two-thirds of all canceled flights in the United States, according to tracking platform FlightAware.

Many airlines were affected when cybersecurity company CrowdStrike sent a faulty update to more than 8 million Microsoft computers around the world late last week. Most of them reduced cancellations to roughly normal levels by the end of the weekend.

Atlanta-based Delta and its partners have canceled more than 6,500 flights since Friday, far more than any other airline, according to figures from FlightAware and travel-data provider Cirium.

Buttigieg said his department will investigate “how it could be that days after the other airlines are back to normal, Delta is still canceling hundreds of flights.”

At a news conference, Buttigieg said the Transportation Department will also examine Delta's customer service, including “unacceptable” lines for customer service and reports that unaccompanied minors were stranded at airports. He said the department has received more than 3,000 complaints about the airline's breakdown.

Delta said it was 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,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement. “Across our operation, Delta teams are working tirelessly to care for and make it right for customers" affected by the disruptions.

John Laughter, Delta’s chief of operations, said the airline was moving planes, pilots and flight attendants “to where they need to be so we can return to normal operations by the end of the week.”

The collapse at Delta has been stunning for an outfit that was widely viewed as the best big U.S. airline — the most profitable before and after the pandemic, and the best-run. In recent years, Delta has almost always ranked near the top among all U.S. carriers for on-time performance.

Delta appears to rely more than other airlines on systems that run on Microsoft Windows. The airline said upward of half its technology systems are Windows-based, including a key tool used to schedule pilots and flight attendants. That system could not keep up with the high number of changes triggered by the outage.

Delta said late Tuesday that a backlog of “issues” in the crew-scheduling system was reduced by 75% over the last 36 hours, and the airline was also making progress in returning lost bags to their owners.

In addition to probing the cause of Delta's collapse, investigators are likely to focus on whether Delta is complying with federal requirements such as offering prompt refunds to passengers whose flights are canceled or significantly delayed. The refunds are supposed to be in the form the customer used to pay for their ticket — typically a credit card — and not just a voucher.

In a text provided to The Associated Press, a Delta passenger whose flight was canceled Saturday was told, “If you prefer not to rebook your trip, your ticket value will automatically be available as an eCredit that can be used towards a future Delta ticket.”

In Washington, lawmakers are beginning to weigh in. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Senate committee that oversees airlines, said in a letter to Delta CEO Ed Bastian that she is “concerned” that Delta is not complying with passenger rights contained in a law that Congress passed in May.

“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.

Delta’s meltdown mirrors that of Southwest Airlines, which canceled nearly 17,000 flights over 15 days in December 2022. A Transportation Department investigation ended with Southwest agreeing to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement.

Southwest blamed its breakdown on a winter storm, but other airlines recovered in a couple days while Southwest did not. Consumer advocates see the same pattern with Delta this month — the airline continues to blame the CrowdStrike outage while rivals such as American recovered quickly. Even United Airlines, the second-worst at cancellations, was back on track Monday.

“It's not about the thing that caused the problem, it's about how you recover from the problem. That's the test of an airline,” said William McGee, a former aircraft dispatcher who is a consumer advocate at the American Economic Liberties Project, a group critical of large corporations.

FILE - A Delta Air Lines plane leaves the gate on July 12, 2021, at Logan International Airport in Boston. U.S. airline regulators have opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines, which is still struggling to restore operations on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, more than four full days after a faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide and disrupted global air travel. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

A Delta Air Lines jet leaves the gate, Friday, July 19, 2024, at Logan International Airport in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Travelers stand in line at a Delta Air Lines counter at Reagan National Airport on Friday, July 19, 2024, in Arlington, Va. A global technology outage caused by a faulty software update grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, small businesses and other services on Friday, highlighting the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a handful of providers. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algerians head to the polls Saturday to cast votes for president and determine who will govern their gas-rich North African nation — five years after pro-democracy protests prompted the military to oust the previous president after two decades in power.

Algeria is Africa's largest country by area and, with almost 45 million people, it's the continent's second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world's population.

Since elections were scheduled in March — ahead of the predicted schedule — there has been little suspense as military-backed President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appears poised to breeze to victory against the two challengers running against him: an Islamist and a leftist.

The hot summer campaign has sparked little enthusiasm, apart from on public television, where it's required that candidate and surrogate appearances be covered. On TV, election season has been presented as a vibrant affair.

“Voting has no meaning in Algeria like in the big democracies,” 28-year-old Kaci Taher told The Associated Press a month before the election. “Where I come from, the results and quotas are fixed in advance in the back room of the government, so what’s the point of taking part in the electoral farce?”

“Uncle Tebboune," as his campaign has framed the 78-year-old, was elected in December 2019 after nearly a year of weekly demonstrations demanding the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Their demands were met when Bouteflika resigned that April and was replaced by an interim government of his former allies, which called for elections later in the year.

Protestors opposed holding elections too soon, fearing the candidates running that year each were close to the old regime and would perpetuate the corruption-ridden system they wanted to end. Tebboune, a former prime minister seen as close to Algeria's politically powerful military, emerged the winner. But his victory was marred by low voter turnout, widespread boycotts from protestors and Election Day tumult, during which crowds sacked voting stations and police broke up demonstrations.

This year, Tebboune ran as an independent candidate with the support of several political parties including the National Liberation Front, which has dominated Algerian politics since the country wrested independence from France after more than a decade of war in 1962.

The southwestern Algeria native and political veteran has framed his first term in office as a turning point, telling voters in a campaign rally the week before polls that he “put Algeria back on track." To cement his legitimacy both domestically and to Algeria's allies, he hopes more of the country's 24 million eligible voters will participate in Saturday's election than in his first, when 39.9% turned out to vote.

“It seems that what matters most to ‘le pouvoir’ in this election is voter turnout to lend legitimacy to their candidate, whose victory is a foregone conclusion,” said Algerian sociologist Mohamed Hennad, employing a term frequently used to describe the military-backed political establishment.

Twenty-six candidates submitted preliminary paperwork to run in the election, although only two were ultimately approved to challenge Tebboune. Like the president, both have also emphasized turnout. Neither political novices, they have avoided directly criticizing Tebboune on the campaign trail.

Abdelali Hassani Cherif, a 57-year-old engineer from the Islamist party Movement of Society for Peace has made populist appeals to Algerian youth, running on the slogan “Opportunity!” and calling for efforts to boost employment and reform education, where French language has long played a major role in addition to Arabic.

Youcef Aouchiche, a 41-year-old former journalist running with the Socialist Forces Front, campaigned on a “vision for tomorrow,” and referenced human rights issues plaguing journalists, activists and critics of the government in Tebboune's Algeria. It's the first time since 1999 that his party, which enjoys strong support among ethnic minorities in central Algeria, has put forth a candidate.

Andrew Farrand, the Middle East and North Africa director at the geopolitical risk consultancy Horizon Engage, said both opposition candidates were more aimed at the 2025 legislative elections than the 2024 presidential contest. Because Algerian law funds political parties based on the number of seats they win in legislative elections, they hope campaigning will position them for a strong performance in 2025.

“It’s a long game: How can I mobilize my base? How can I build up a campaign machine? And how can I get into the good graces of the authorities so that I can be in a position to increase my seats?” he said. “We’ve seen that in their choice not to overtly criticize president … paired with a very strong message to Algerians to come out and vote.”

Besides Aouchiche and Cherif, others boycotted the contest, denouncing it as a rubber stamp exercise that could only entrench the power of Tebboune and the elites that rule the country.

A man walks past electoral banners of presidential candidate, including President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, center, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, in Algiers, Algeria. (AP Photo/Fateh Guidoum)

Algerian president and candidate for re-election Abdelmajid Tebboune delivers a speech during his campaign for the upcoming presidential election, in Oran, Algeria, Sunday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Str)