How one day of thunderstorms turned into a five day Delta meltdown

[Kev3188]

This is the 3rd significant (and systemic) failure in less than a year.

Too much investment in "branding," and not enough in less glamorous things like infrastructure, IMO...

 

[lindy]

Storm had nothing to do with it. It just started the ball rolling down hill. Crew tracking failed. That is because we are running about 1000 pilot short because they are all in the wrong categories. No reserves in the small airplanes and they are all out of time. Hiring is way behind and we just passed 14000 on the seniority list. But go ahead and blame the storm. Someone should be fired.....and shouldn't be a supervisor.
Very fortunate for DL that during that time the media was focused on UA and the passenger being dragged off the airplane.Otherwise this would have been a huge black eye.

If this was a known constraint to management, all the more reason to "isolate" the disruption to the day in question. Determine where your assets ( aircraft and crew) are, get them in position, and restart the operation. It may take 24-48 hours to get a full flight schedule running, but it is much better than five days.