Stranded in the CrowdStrike Meltdown: ‘No Hotel, No Food, No Assistance’

Young, old, families, unaccompanied minors, elite status holders, it didn’t seem to matter.

No one got a break when the CrowdStrike software outage upended global air travel in July, triggering flight delays and cancellations on multiple carriers that stranded thousands of travelers around the world for days.

In the weeks after the outage, we asked affected readers to share their experiences during the incident and more than 230 of them responded, almost unanimously telling us that the airlines failed at every point of travel, for every kind of traveler.

Airline apps malfunctioned. Gate agents were simply overwhelmed. Vouchers for hotels or food were mostly unavailable or inadequate. And stuck travelers said that even if they spoke to an agent or got through to customer service, they received incomplete and inconsistent responses. Almost two months later, requested reimbursements for food, accommodation and transportation expenses are still outstanding.

While complaints about all the affected carriers turned up, more than half of the responses stemmed from issues with Delta Air Lines, which struggled more than most other airlines in getting operations back to normal in the days after the outage.

Here’s what our readers told us about how the outage upended their travels — and where the airlines let them down.

Getting help

In the United States, disruptions hit at least six airlines early Friday, July 19. The major carriers Delta, United Airlines and American Airlines, which relied on computer systems that used CrowdStrike software for critical operations such as passenger check-in and crew scheduling, were especially hamstrung. Delta alone said it canceled 7,000 flights over a five-day period, including 40 percent of its scheduled flights for July 21. (In contrast, Delta canceled only nine flights on Aug. 30, the busiest travel day of the Labor Day holiday weekend, according to a flight-tracking company, FlightAware.)