Local woman fighting for nearly $4K in reimbursements for flights impacted by global IT outage

WASHINGTON TWP. — A Montgomery County woman is still dealing with Delta’s disruptions weeks after a global IT outage and is trying to get back thousands of dollars.

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Kim Estess, of Washington Twp., had been looking forward to a break from work with a couple’s vacation to Scotland.

“We had a big, like, year-in-the-works vacation as my husband’s 40th birthday trip to Scotland,” she said.

As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, July’s global IT outage involving the cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, delayed their Delta departure from Cincinnati and they ended up just missing their connecting flight.

“The plane was still at the gate, but the door had been closed,” she explained. “So we were kind of pounding on the door, trying to get on and they said they closed it 15 minutes early for international flights, and we had just missed that.”

Estess and her husband got to Scotland a day late, but not before canceling their Delta flights and booking with other airlines.

“Delta had this travel waiver going on. They said, basically, if you cancel your flight, we’re going to refund you. We’ll pay for airfare on a different airline,” she said.

Estess said she filed for reimbursement with Delta, but it was mostly rejected.

“I submitted taxicab reimbursements, a hotel reimbursement, airfare, and some food receipts for the 24 hours we ended up going into Manhattan,” Estess said. “We didn’t, you know, spend the night on the floor at JFK. We left and we went to a hotel. So I submitted all of that, and I had roughly $4,000 worth of money I was asking to be reimbursed for the additional flights, the cost of same-day travel. So I deducted the amount of the refund from the original Delta flights, and then that was the overage, plus the hotels and all these other things. And they ultimately have given me a $300 reimbursement of the roughly $4,000 I’m asking for.”

She told News Center 7′s John Bedell that she’s called Delta and a customer service representative told her she is eligible for the travel waiver and told her to resubmit her claim. She’s now waiting, but this lawyer is not finished making her case to get her money back.

“I’m not going to give up for this amount of money,” she said. “So, I’m going to keep resubmitting for as long as I need to.”

News Center 7 reached out to Delta on Tuesday, but has not received a response at the time of this report.

On top of waiting to hear back on her second reimbursement application, Estess said she’s looking into what the travel insurance she has with the credit card she used to book the trip can get her.

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