Delta Air Lines pauses unaccompanied minor travel as IT meltdown continues

Delta Air Lines has paused travel for unaccompanied minors – children under the age of 15 who are traveling without an adult – until Thursday, July 25 as it tries to recover from Friday’s global IT outage.

While most airlines and businesses affected by the Crowdstrike glitch in Microsoft have recovered, Delta’s IT crisis has continued to spiral and prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Headquartered in Atlanta at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Delta issued a statement that unaccompanied minors already booked will not be able to travel. “Please do not book new travel for unaccompanied minors at this time. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause for you and your family,” Delta’s website states.

Depending on the airline, an unaccompanied minor over the age of 5 may travel alone. At age 8, the minor traveler is allowed to make connecting flights.

Nearly 200 Delta flights to and from Atlanta were canceled on Tuesday , long after parents thought they’d have to worry about the IT outage.

Raquel Lieberman’s son, 11, was traveling from a summer camp in Boston to Atlanta when she got the first “cryptic message” about his flight changing.

“On Friday, July 19, [Delta] said the unaccompanied minor embargo would be over on Sunday. On Saturday, July 20, I got a cryptic text message at 5:49 p.m. saying that my kid’s travel plan had to be changed. That did not give us much time to figure out a plan for our kid on Sunday,” Lieberman said.

Her son and his friend were traveling together. The kids were rebooked on a Monday flight when their parents received an email that the embargo had been extended.

“The [summer camp team] was on top of it. They sent someone to the airport on Saturday evening to see what if anything could be done about the unaccompanied minor embargo, ensured us by email that our kids would be able to stay at camp until they could fly home, and continued to search for solutions for kids flying on Delta, calling parents as they found alternatives,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman rebooked her son on JetBlue to Buffalo, N.Y., where he was met by his grandparents.

“We could not just wait around for Delta to reinstate unaccompanied minor travel. I was extremely fortunate that a close family friend who lives in Boston dropped everything to pick up my son from camp on Sunday and take him to his house until a solution could be worked out,” she said.

A group of Atlanta-bound teenagers traveling from summer camp in Barryville, N.Y., were stopped by Camp Tel Yehuda before they could reach the Newark Airport on Tuesday morning, July 23. Several returned to camp, their parents working to rearrange travel.

“School starts in a week,” said Tamar Kapner. “My kid wants to be home.”

Kapner’s backup plan is for her daughter to take a train to Washington D.C., where she will be received by a family member. The Atlanta mom will then embark on an 18-hour road trip to D.C. and back.

Many teens aren’t seasoned travelers like the 16-year-old son of Rachael, who asked Rough Draft to keep her last name private. Due to return from a two-week summer program with 40 kids in Spain and Portugal, Rachael’s son had some issues last summer but doesn’t seem fazed by the travel chaos.

“Last year, a group was delayed and missed their connecting flight, but they were prepared. A counselor stayed with the kids and got hotel rooms until they could get flights out,” she said.

This time the group is flying from Europe to Newark, N.J., where only one Delta flight departed on Monday, July 22. Rachael has purchased a $300 one-way ticket from Newark to Atlanta on United Airlines as a backup plan.

“I advised him to put anything valuable into his carryon,” said Rachael, who had been tracking Delta flights all day. “The flight appears to be on time, but Newark is my worry.”

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