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Three days after planes around the world were grounded by a technology outage, Delta Air Lines was struggling to get stranded passengers to their destinations on Monday and was the only carrier still canceling hundreds of flights as it raced to update its systems. The company’s performance was much worse than other large U.S. air carriers like American Airlines and United Airlines, which were operating with few cancellations, and appeared to stem from decisions it made when its systems first went down, analysts said. The secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, singled out Delta on Sunday for its slow recovery and said that his office had received numerous complaints about Delta’s customer service. He warned that the carrier must provide its customers with adequate assistance and refunds. Delta canceled about 1,300 flights on Sunday, roughly the same number as each of the previous two days, and delayed another 1,600, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The cancellations represented about a third of the airline’s scheduled flights. Delta’s cancellations on Monday — 815 as of 3 p.m. Eastern time — accounted for about 21% of its scheduled departures, according to FlightAware. Another 34% of its flights were delayed. The tech outage on Friday hit airlines especially hard. A flawed update from CrowdStrike, whose software is used around the world, forced Delta, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Spirit Airlines and United Airlines to ground flights. Delta has been the slowest to restore its operations. American and United had canceled fewer than 50 flights each as of noon on Monday, according to FlightAware. Aviation experts said that Delta’s strategy in the wake of the software outages differed from that of other major U.S. airlines. Rather than leaning more heavily on delays, the airline canceled many flights. It now appears to be having trouble getting its operations back to normal and rebooking passengers who were stranded in the last three days, said Robert W. Mann Jr., an aviation analyst. Airlines like Delta now “will have to find open seats on already heavily booked flights to reaccommodate hundreds of thousands of distressed customers whose peak-season flights were canceled,” Mann said. Another thing working against Delta is that its main hub, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, is the busiest airport in the world. Social media sites have been filled with photographs and videos of chaotic scenes and long lines at the airline’s counters there over the weekend.<br/>

Boeing won orders for at least 40 wide-body jetliners from Korean Air, including the yet-to-be-certified 777X jetliner, in a vote of confidence for the struggling manufacturer. The order, announced at the Farnborough Airshow outside of London, includes 20 777X planes, the largest in Boeing’s commercial jet lineup, and 20 787-10 Dreamliner planes, both long-range jets. The airline can also upsize its order for 10 more of the Dreamliners, the biggest option for that model. Korean Air CEO Walter Cho said he expected to start receiving the planes later this decade. The twin-engine 777X is years behind schedule but earlier this month began certification flight tests with the U.S. FAA, a major milestone. Boeing customers have been grappling with delayed aircraft, in part due to post-Covid supply chain snarls that have hit the aerospace industry, but also related to a safety crisis and manufacturing flaws, particularly after a door plug blow out earlier this year on one of its smaller and bestselling 737 Max planes. “If I wasn’t assured, I would not have ordered it,” Cho said at a news conference of Korean Air’s order. “I know Boeing will pull through whatever it is they’re going through right now, and I have full confidence in Boeing.” The airline, a partner of Delta Air Lines, earlier this year also ordered competing Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, the largest of that type. “Whichever comes first will become our flagship, whoever’s on time,” Cho said.<br/>

Japan Airlines (JAL) and flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will soon bolster their business tie-up by launching a revenue-sharing arrangement to maximize earnings on routes, Nikkei has learned. JAL and Garuda, which have been in a code-sharing agreement since 2018, will enter into a joint venture. The two sides will coordinate schedules and fares, providing passengers with more convenient connections. In the airline industry, joint venture arrangements entail revenue-sharing on certain routes, much like a single company. The carriers will also jointly plan and market travel packages. Southeast Asia is turning into a key market for JAL. Between January and May, passenger volume on Southeast Asian routes grew 5% on the year to 1.13m people. Southeast Asian traffic is the biggest market in JAL's network, surpassing the 630,000 passengers for North America, the company's cash cow. Demand from inbound tourists was particularly strong in Indonesia. About 263,800 passengers visited Japan between January and June, up 30.8% from the same period last year and exceeding the 218,400 travelers from the U.K. Indonesia has the world's fourth-largest population, with about 280m people. It is expected to rank sixth worldwide in passenger volume in 2025 with 160.4m, according to market data from Airbus. This would surpass Japan's seventh-ranked volume of 159.33m passengers. Bolstering international routes between Japan and Indonesia has become an essential strategy for sustainable growth for JAL, which faces a declining domestic market at home. The airline looks to attract more passengers taking off from Indonesia and expand international flights. Right now, there are no direct flights from Indonesia to North America, among other destinations.<br/>