Why Delta is under investigation

TThe US Department of Transportation (DOT) has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines, after receiving hundreds of complaints about canceled and delayed flights that began when last week’s CrowdStrike outage caused technological chaos around the world.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the news in X on Tuesday, saying the investigation aims to “ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during widespread and ongoing disruptions.”

The announcement comes after Buttigieg said in a post on X on Sunday, the DOT received hundreds of complaints about the airline about “ongoing outages and unacceptable customer service conditions.”

“I have made it clear to Delta that we will hold them to all applicable passenger protections,” Buttigieg said in Sunday’s post. “Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to rebook, free rebooking to those who do, and timely refunds for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as appropriate customer service assistance. client.”

“No one should be stuck in an airport overnight or wait hours to speak to a customer service agent,” he added.

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The CrowdStrike outage, which began Thursday night after a faulty update was deployed to computers running Microsoft Windows, caused thousands of flights being canceled or delayed across the world. Since the disruption began, Delta has canceled more than 6,600 flights – more than any other airline, O Associated Press reported.

A Delta spokesperson told TIME in a statement that the airline “is fully cooperating” with the DOT investigation. Delta said in his website that more than half of its IT systems worldwide are Windows-based and that the CrowdStrike outage meant the airline’s IT teams had to “manually repair and restart each of the affected systems.”

“We remain fully focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems around the world inoperable,” the spokesperson said. “Across our operations, Delta teams are working tirelessly to take care of and make things right for customers impacted by delays and cancellations, as we work to restore the reliable, on-time service they expect from Delta.”

Although Delta has been involved in controversial customer service incidents in the past, the airline frequently Ranked as one of the most punctual major airlines. But on Tuesday, Delta had another 470 flight cancellations — even as other airlines, like United and American Airlines, appeared to have recovered from the CrowdStrike outage with just 47 and 40 flight cancellations, respectively, according to FlightAware.