Delta Air Lines Computer Hack? Flight Delays, 300 Cancellations, People Screaming At Gate Agents, Conspiracy Theories

Was Delta hacked? The worldwide Delta Air Lines outage is causing quite a fuss for airline passengers around the world on Monday, August 8. The trending #Delta hashtag on Twitter reveals all sorts of theories about why Delta Air Lines planes have been grounded across the globe.

As seen in the above photo from Monday, travelers hoping to board Delta Air Lines planes in Las Vegas at the boarding area at McCarran International Airport have to wait due to the system outage. However, with the long system outage caused by unspecified details, Delta Air Lines passengers are turning to social media to find out more information about why Delta grounded flights are going through unspecified systems issues.

As a result of the Delta Airlines mystery, related search terms such as Delta hack are also being bandied about on Twitter, with some folks theorizing that Delta may have been hacked. However, conspiracy theorists claim that Delta doesn’t want to let the public know such a worrisome theory.

As seen in the above photo, a row of Delta planes sit still at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport.

Other folks are using social media to search for specific information about Delta Airlines as it relates to specific airports, such as #Delta JFK, or even specific cities and Delta hubs, such as #Delta Atlanta.

According to the official Twitter account named @Deltanewshub, there was a power outage that had an effect on Delta Airlines flights around the world.

8:40 am ET UPDATE: Power outage affecting @Delta flights worldwide, ground stop lifted. More info @DeltaNewsHub https://t.co/L0Xu1mmSEe

— Delta News Hub (@DeltaNewsHub) August 8, 2016

The update from Delta states that as of 8:40 a.m. ET, the ground stop that Delta had issued has been lifted, and some Delta flights are taking off in a limited amount of departures. As such, some flights have been canceled, and there are still delays for Delta flights around the world. Delta warned passengers to expect delays if they are on their way to the airport to catch a Delta flight.

.@Delta has cancelled approx. 300 flights due to power outage. Systems are coming back online, but delays and cancellations continue.

— Delta News Hub (@DeltaNewsHub) August 8, 2016

The time expected to wait for a Delta flight to depart could be long, so Delta is mitigating expectations by telling folks their customer service agents are doing all things possible to help passengers. That fact hasn’t stopped folks from reporting that they have witnessed frustrated passengers screaming at Delta gate agents.

Plenty of memes representing hapless Delta employees are filling social media, along with advice that screaming at Delta gate agents won’t help the Delta planes move any faster.

The above photo shows Delta Air Lines passengers waiting to board flights in Rome at the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport.

With many Delta Air Lines passengers left stranded, as reported by USA Today, the unexpected computer outage is bringing out all sorts of conspiracy theories — along with anger or forced patience — from passengers who did not expect to spend their Monday mornings waiting for planes that have been grounded due to the Delta Air Lines computer outage.

A sampling of some of the reactions to the Delta Air Lines computer outage from social media posts on Facebook and Twitter can be read below.

“From the talented @PaulaReidCBS: At this point the FBI has no evidence that the Delta outage was a hack.”

“Regardless of whether the Delta power outage was a hack or not, a power outage is so completely unacceptable for airline IT on any level.”

“Wondering how many new IT consultants will be hired @Delta today. Was this a #hack #Delta?”

“Something in my gut tells me that Delta isn’t having a ‘glitch.’ More like ‘hack.'”

“Doesn’t anyone else think it’s strange a second large airline company has worldwide system problems that shuts the company down in just a few months? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, BUT, it doesn’t seem like it’s a coincidence. Is some entity out there checking to see how the airlines handle these problems for future use?”

[Photo by Bree Fowler/AP Images]