ATLANTA _ Delta Air Lines resumed limited flight departures Monday morning after a computer outage caused flight cancellations and delays across its entire operation, delaying travelers during one of the busiest travel periods of the week.
"Cancellations and delays continue," Delta said in a statement on its website, after earlier saying that "large-scale cancellations" were expected Monday.
"Customers headed to the airport should expect delays and cancellations," Delta said.
Early Monday mornings are a peak period for business travelers starting the work week, as well as for vacationers returning from weekend trips and others.
The airline said Monday it had lifted the ground stop, but customer service wait times were long, and there may be some "lag time in the display of accurate flight status" on the Delta website, on its app and from Delta representatives on the phone and at the airport.
The computer system failure was due to a power outage in Atlanta that began at about 2:30 a.m., according to Delta.
The airline said those travelers whose flights are cancelled or "significantly delayed" are entitled to a refund.
For any travelers with flights booked on Delta on Monday, Delta is waiving certain change fees for those who want to reschedule their flights to leave later this week.
Conor Bergin, of Atlanta, said he was already at the airport planning to head to Minneapolis, when he saw winding lines and soon got a news alert about all flights being grounded.
"You always expect a bit of a line at the airport but not like this," he said.
"Hopefully this doesn't become a theme or a reoccurring issue," Bergin said.
Atlanta-based Delta said at about 5 a.m. that the computer outage was delaying flights awaiting departure, though flights en route were continuing to their destinations. It announced at 8:40 a.m. that the ground stop had been lifted.
The Delta computer outage comes after Southwest Airlines suffered a massive computer outage last month that grounded its fleet nationwide and had widespread repercussions on its flights for days.
Delta is the largest airline at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Dallas-based Southwest is the second-largest.
