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You may remember hearing about Delta's system crashing on August 8, 2016. After it was all said and done, the airline lost $150 million; about 1% of their quarterly revenue. They're not the only ones, though. Southwest had a similar outage in July, delaying thousands of travelers.
By the Numbers
- The airline lost $100 million in revenue and $50 million in net costs as a result of the outage.
- Over 2,300 flights canceled within 3 days.
- Delta Air Lines is the second-largest air carrier, in revenue, in the United States.
Always a Silver Lining
Delta is nothing if not efficient, even in the face of a challenge like a system outage. During a 10-day period in August, 91% of flights touched down within 14 minutes of their scheduled arrival time, meeting the Department of Transportation's definition of “on time”. Not only that, but the airline boasted an impressive cancel-free Labor Day weekend, from September 3 through September 5, 2016.
Gil West, Delta's Executive Vice President, recently said, “What Delta people have done this month has been nothing short of incredible. The Delta team rallied to repair the brand nick we experienced with the IT outage by immediately rebounding to industry-leading performance and delivering the reliability our customers expect. It's been an incredible and unprecedented comeback.”
Final Thoughts
While it's unfortunate that the airline incurred such a huge loss last month, it's clear that they took it in stride. The airline has a strong focus on innovation, gearing up for a busy 2017. They are adding Premium Economy cabins to their first Airbus A350 next spring and rolling out fully enclosed business suites in the fall.
What do you think? Are you going to Keep Climbing with Delta? Let us know in the comments below!
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