Delta Air CEO apologises for glitch as flight cancellations rise

Atlanta

DELTA Air Lines chief executive officer Ed Bastian apologised for a computer failure that halted flights for several hours and grounded thousands of passengers as the second-biggest US carrier struggled to restart its worldwide operations.

More than 100 flights are expected to be cancelled on Tuesday morning, about 200 could be delayed and those numbers could grow overnight, the airline said on its website as it continued recovery operations. A power outage at Delta's Atlanta base at about 2.30 am on Monday interrupted computer operations, resulting in the cancellation of 870 flights the same day, it said. Flights resumed on a limited basis about six hours later.