(NEWSnet/AP) – Delta Air Lines struggled into Monday to recover from an international technology outage caused by a faulty software update Friday.

In the aftermath of the initial round of flight disruptions, tens of thousands of passengers have been stranded or delayed, drawing attention from the federal government.

Other airline carriers had mostly returned Monday to normal levels of service disruptions, intensifying the glare on Delta’s response to the outage that hit computer systems at airlines, hospitals and businesses around the world.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke to Delta CEO Ed Bastian on Sunday about the airline’s high number of cancellations.

Buttigieg said his agency had received “hundreds of complaints” about Delta, and he expects the airline to provide hotels and meals for travelers who are delayed and to issue quick refunds to customers who don’t want to be rebooked on a later flight.

“No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to a customer service agent,” Buttigieg said. He vowed to help Delta passengers by enforcing air-travel consumer-protection rules.

Delta has canceled more than 5,500 flights since the CrowdStrike-related outage started early Friday morning, including at least 700 flights canceled on Monday, according to aviation-data provider Cirium. Delta and its regional affiliates accounted for about two-thirds of all cancellations worldwide on Monday, including nearly all the ones in the United States.

United Airlines has been the second-worst performer since the outage started, canceling nearly 1,500 flights. United canceled only 17 Monday flights by late morning, however.

Other airlines that were caught up in the first round of groundings also returned mostly to normal operations by Monday. That included American, Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant.

Bastian, the Delta CEO, said in a message to customers Sunday that the airline was continuing to restore operations that were disrupted. One of the tools Delta uses to track crews was affected and could not process the high number of changes triggered by the outage.

“The technology issue occurred on the busiest travel weekend of the summer, with our booked loads exceeding 90%, limiting our re-accommodation capabilities,” Bastian wrote.

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