Nationwide Delta computer outage causes hour-long delay

ATLANTA - Delta Air Lines said their computer systems have returned to normal Tuesday following an outage that lasted about two hours and forced flights to be held at the gate.

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The issue was noticed by customers around 6:50 p.m. Customers started to tweet Delta's official Twitter account asking about the problem.

"We apologize for the difficulties you have experienced. We are experiencing technical difficulties at this time. We are fully aware of the issue and we are working expeditiously toward a resolution as soon as possible. We appreciate your continued patience," reads one response from Delta.

"Our computer tracking system is temporarily down. I suggest you reach back again in about an hour when our system should be back up and we will be able to assist you," read another.

The Atlanta-based airline soon posted an official statement on their website:

"Delta IT teams are working diligently to address a technology issue impacting some of our systems. We have issued a Delta groundstop as we work to bring systems back up as quickly as possible. We apologize to all customers for this inconvenience."

A spokesperson for Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Delta's "home" airport, said there is an outage affecting Delta and Delta Connect. Delta flights were not leaving the gates and incoming flights are being stopped on taxiways because there are no gates.

Just after 9 p.m., Delta said their systems were back online again and they were returning to normal operation, but there would likely be delays for the rest of the night as they worked to catch up on the missing flight time. Delta said delays on Wednesday from the outage should be minimal.

Delta said the issues were limited to the United States and never impacted the safety of any of the flights. The cause of the technical issue has not yet been found. The most notable issue to operations were the gate assignments.

The outage mostly affected booking, check-ins, and flight statuses for customers using delta.com and the Delta app.

Delta made an apology to its customers for the inconvenience.

The delays caused by the outage are compounding an already hectic travel day. The FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center real-time status showed online delays Tuesday evening in Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Newark, and New York due mostly to weather.