Delta Air Lines Inc.’s efforts to restore normal service Wednesday stumbled as cancellations that snarled the carrier for two days left flight crews out of position, adding to travel disruption.

The Atlanta-based airline said 255 flights were canceled Wednesday after an earlier projection only about 90 services would need to be scratched. Normal operations after the disruptions from Monday’s computer system failure now are expected to be restored in the afternoon, the No. 2 U.S. carrier by traffic, rather than midday.

“We’re in the final hours of bouncing back from the disruption,” the airline’s senior vice president for operations Dave Holtz said in a statement Wednesday.

The airline canceled about 800 flights Tuesday after about 1,000 were annulled the day before when a systems failure occurred in the early hours of Monday. Delta chief operating officer Gil West said on Tuesday that a “power control module” at the airline’s technology center malfunctioned “causing a surge to the transformer and a loss of power.” Backup systems didn’t kick-in as expected.

Delta said its computer systems now were functioning normally. Delays and cancellations were largely because crew members were in the wrong location or reached the end of their legally allowed duty time.

Source: www.wsj.com/