'No guarantee they will refund us'

ANCHORAGE, A.K. (WCIV) — A Charleston family is stranded 4,500 miles from home.

Delta Airlines cancelled their flights out of Alaska the weekend of July 19, and now it's lagging behind as the rest of the airlines rebound from the Crowdstrike tech outage.

“We have no guarantee that they will refund us for anything, hotels, food, anything I've received, nothing,” Carrie said.

She called News 4's Anne Emerson as she struggled to find hotel rooms. News 4 is not including her last name for safety reasons.

READ MORE | "Global tech glitch grounds flights, disrupts banks and media worldwide"

Right now, Carrie and 11 members of her family are stuck in Anchorage, Alaska after getting off of a cruise ship.

“Delta is not working with us. They have refused to book us on any other airline, even though there are other flights available, they have flat out, said we will not rebook you on another flight, and the earliest we can get you home is Thursday,” Carrie explained.

The next flight Carrie could find for her family leaves Tuesday night, and it will cost her $3,600 out-of-pocket.

Hotel rooms are scarce, and when News 4 spoke with her Monday the situation was dire.

“I have my father-in-law who is diabetic, and he does not have enough medication to last him through as long as they're stranding us here,” Carrie said.

They are not the only ones suffering. According to the latest flight data from Cirium, Delta has cancelled 5,500 flights since Friday’s outage including 700 on Monday.

In fact, Delta makes up nearly all of the cancellations right now in the US.

READ MORE | "What is CrowdStrike? A look behind the global tech glitch"

What went wrong?

Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian told Delta customers on Sunday the tool Delta uses to track crews was affected by the outage, there was bad weather at its hub in Atlanta, and the outage landed on the busiest travel weekend of the summer.

But Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also issued a statement on Sunday saying that the feds are getting hundreds of complaints about Delta’s poor performance.

In a tweet- the secretary said: "Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to take rebooking, free rebooking for those who do, and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance."

If you are stranded—reach out to his office.

But for Carrie and her family, it will be another long Alaskan night in the land of the midnight sun.

“I'm just shocked that they (Delta) are doing this to their customers. And I don't understand what's going on," she said.

READ MORE | "Nearly 7,000 US flights canceled as global software update causes chaos"

A Charleston International Airport spokesperson says:

Delta Airlines, responded to our concerns, releasing this statement:

The Department of Transportation also responded late Monday directing airline customers to check with flightrights.gov.

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