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Delta Airlines passengers still stranded at Sea-Tac Airport

SEATAC, Wash — Growing frustration for Delta passengers who have been stranded for days at Sea-Tac Airport.

The lines at Delta Airlines counters remain long at Sea-Tac.

The airline has canceled more than a third of its scheduled flights today alone. Nearly 17 hundred other flights have been delayed.

Some passengers are telling you they are booking flights on other airlines. They say they have no other choice, especially since most other airlines are flying.

This is after a glitch in software used around the world grounded five airlines late last week. But as you can see, Delta’s passengers are dealing with the brunt of it.

These are Delta passengers, still stranded at Sea-Tac, some since late last week, because of a technology outage that grounded aircraft across the globe.

“They took forever to put the bags on the crew timed out,” said Luann Lenz.

She says that was yesterday. And they are still stuck at Sea-Tac.

“We rebooked on United on our own,” Lenz said, “‘cause Delta didn’t have anything. We’re trying to get to Raleigh-Durham. And we don’t have, they didn’t have any flights going out that we could find until Thursday or Friday, at the earliest.”

When asked if “they” are helping, Rae Isla asked, “Who’s they?”

Delta Airlines? “If you can get ahold of them,” she added.

The Los Angeles-based musician has been forced to take matters into her own hands, too.

“And rebooked on another airline for tomorrow,” Isla said. “So, now we’re just trying to get our bags so we can get back and do this party.”

No more Delta? “No, not this time,” she said.

“Not that there’s much good news in this,” said Steve Danishek. “But the fact is that Delta is flying more seats this summer empty than they thought they were going to.”

The travel expert says that means these passengers will get where they are going, eventually.

“However, passengers do have a recourse of getting for hotels, for meals,” Danishek said. “They have to go to Delta to get those. They can’t send them a bill later and transportation on other carriers if Delta will go along with that.”

KIRO 7 talked to one stranded passenger. He says Delta told him they would reimburse him if he could find a room for $250. But he says every hotel was booked.

There’s one other thing travel experts say you should do: complain to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

It won’t help you get on a flight. But it will alert lawmakers that this airline may not have done all it should for its stranded passengers.

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