- Delta Air Lines is still processing reimbursement requests from passengers who were affected by the CrowdStrike outage last month.
- The airline has been vague about what is and isn’t covered in its expanded reimbursement policy.
- Some passengers say they’ve been denied reimbursement for expenses that they believe should be covered.
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Delta Air Lines’ operations may be back to normal after their extended meltdown following the CrowdStrike outage last month, but for many passengers who were caught up in the chaos, it’s still a headache trying to get the compensation they’re owed.
When Delta announced an expanded reimbursement policy for affected travelers, Mia Williams said she was expecting a painless process for all the extra expenses she incurred.
“I made the assumption that when they said they would reimburse for expenses accrued, it would include things like your pet sitter, your long-term parking for extra days at the lot,” she told USA TODAY. Instead, Williams said, most of the expenses she claimed for reimbursement were denied by the airline, and the appeals process hasn’t been clear.
Williams and her husband, who live in Layton, Utah, were visiting their timeshare in Key West, Florida, when the outage occurred. She said their July 20 flight home (via Atlanta) kept getting canceled, and they couldn’t return until July 26.
“I’m starting to feel like we’re stuck on the island for ‘Survivor’ or something, just waiting for Jeff Probst to put out the torch so we can leave,” she said. “The length of our vacation almost doubled. If you plan on a one-week vacation and you’re gone for two, that greatly increases your expenses.”
So far, Williams said, she’s received $300 from Delta for meal reimbursements, which she said seemed to be capped at $30 per day.
For its part, Delta has been vague about what is and isn’t covered in its expanded policy.
In response to questions from USA TODAY, a spokesperson said there is not a $30 cap on food reimbursement but otherwise pointed to statements on the airline’s website, which only refer to broad categories of reimbursable expenses but do not detail everything that is and isn’t covered by the policy.
Under normal conditions, Delta will reimburse passengers for hotel, ground transportation and meals for flights that are canceled or delayed more than three hours, according to the airline’s policy. With the expanded reimbursement allowances for passengers affected by the fallout from the CrowdStrike outage, the airline said it will also cover “the fare paid to purchase another airline ticket in the same class of service, after subtracting the value of the unused Delta ticket,” as well as “alternative transportation methods such as rental cars, rideshares, trains or buses that a customer used to reach their destination, after subtracting the value of the unused Delta ticket.”
In response to a question from USA TODAY, Delta would not say whether expenses that fall outside of these categories, such as additional parking charges, are handled on a case-by-case basis. The airline did say it will cover “reasonable costs for additional categories of expenses,” but did not specify what those categories are.
Kat Zimmerman was planning to fly back to Los Angeles from Traverse City, Michigan, with her partner on July 20 and, like Williams, was marooned by Delta’s information technology struggles.
Zimmerman said she submitted expenses for extending her car rental until July 23, additional parking in Los Angeles and new airline tickets to get home. She said her claim was totally denied and she’s yet to receive any compensation.
“I’m just floored by it,” Zimmerman told USA TODAY. “I received this email, there was no email to send to appeal this, no clarification, nobody had contacted me. I don’t understand how you investigate a claim without talking to people.”
She said a Delta customer service representative told her they ultimately sent her case to another department for “special handling,” but she has yet to receive any indication of if or when she will be reimbursed.
Are you entitled to a refund?Here’s what to know in the CrowdStrike fallout.
When Southwest Airlines experienced a massive operational meltdown in Dec. 2022, it ultimately paid about $1 billion in refunds and reimbursements to affected passengers. It even reimbursed one customer who bought a cheap car to get where they needed to be.
Delta said it has already refunded hundreds of thousands of customers who chose not to continue their travels after July 19 and is still processing reimbursement requests.
A Delta spokesperson told USA TODAY that customers can appeal reimbursement decisions from the airline by replying directly to the email they receive with the notification.
Consumer protections
It seems likely that the airline will continue to face scrutiny from Washington as a result of the fallout, with the Department of Transportation already investigating and members of Congress sending the airline’s CEO pointed letters about what happened.
Delta has maintained throughout the aftermath that CrowdStrike is ultimately to blame, and the airline said it plans to sue the technology companies involved. In letters between all the companies’ lawyers, there’s been a lot of legal finger-pointing, but one thing is clear: Delta took much longer to recover from CrowdStrike’s outage than any other U.S. airline.
For Williams and Zimmerman, who both said they’ve been loyal Delta flyers for years, the trouble getting reimbursed is making them wonder if that loyalty goes both ways.
“I was just so disappointed in them as a company, that they would take no responsibility for leaving people stranded,” Zimmerman said. “I’m sure they’ll apologize but what I want to hear from them is we’re going to compensate you for these very reasonable expenses, and we’ll do better.”
Williams added it feels like Delta is trying to get out of giving reimbursements at all by making the process so opaque and complicated.
“It’s almost like they want you to just quit. It’s almost like they don’t want to give you your money back,” she said. “If you treat people who are loyal to you like this, don’t expect loyalty in the future.”
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected].
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