Transportation Department Opens Probe Into Delta Over IT Outage Struggles

The Department of Transportation has opened a probe into Delta Air Lines as the airline struggles to recover from a global IT outage last week.

While other airlines have recovered, Delta continues to have issues resulting in canceled or delayed flights. As of Tuesday morning (July 23), Delta had canceled over 400 flights as it struggled to find pilots and crew members.

"We have made clear to Delta that they must take care of their passengers and honor their customer service commitments," DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement . "This is not just the right thing to do, it's the law, and our department will leverage the full extent of our investigative and enforcement power to ensure the rights of Delta's passengers are upheld."

On Monday, Delta CEO Ed Bastian explained that the issues were caused by the outage, which knocked out their crew-tracking tools.

"Specifically, the issue impacted the Microsoft Windows operating system. Delta has a significant number of applications that use that system, and in particular, one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown. Our teams have been working around the clock to recover and restore full functionality," Bastian wrote in a blog post .

Delta has not commented on the Transportation Department's investigation or said when it expects its operations to return to normal.