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Delta Resumes Some Service After Hours of Global Outage

BALTIMORE (WJZ/AP) — Delta Air Lines canceled more than 400 flights, including one out of BWI Thurgood Marshall in Maryland, on Monday after a computer glitch caused a global systems crash.

While a few hundred flights were grounded outright, many more were delayed, stranding passengers in long lines and uncertainty at airports across the country.

Less than 12 hours after the outage was initially reported, some flights had resumed as crews worked to repair the problem. The source of the problem? A power outage at the airline's hub in Atlanta about 2:30 a.m. local time.

A Delta spokesman said he had no information on the report.

The fallout from the systems crash frustrated many travelers, who only noticed their flights had been impacted after arriving to the airport.

"I figured I'd probably hang out here for a couple of hours, maybe all day," traveler Mark Hall told WJZ's Devin Bartolotta at BWI.

Said passenger Chris Hinder, "Our flight was supposed to leave at 12:20 p.m. originally, and when I got here, the board didn't even have a time as to when we were supposed to leave, so we were just kind of in the dark."

Because airlines rely on so many moving pieces and complicated systems to keep flight and crew scheduling, ticketing and boarding in order, a short-lived outage can wreak long-term havoc.

It's not the first time in recent weeks that technical woes have rocked people's travel plans. Just last month, in fact, an outage forced Southwest Airlines to ground more than 2,000 flights.

Delta issued an apology to customers and said teams were attempting to fix the problem as quickly as possible. It could take days before things return completely to normal.

If your flight is canceled or significantly delayed, you are entitled to a refund. Learn more HERE.

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(© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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