Once again, TFA is unclear about exactly what DL systems became unavailable. As usual, it's implied that it was ticketing and reservations stuff ("Deltamatic" f

Once again, TFA is unclear about exactly what DL systems became unavailable. As usual, it's implied that it was ticketing and reservations stuff ("Deltamatic" for DL) which is a nightmare, yes. But back in the day (of paper tickets) you could resort to manual processes and still get flights out. The backpressure would accumulate quite fast, and you couldn't operate in 'manual mode' for very long, but you could bust your butt and do it for a departure/arrival push or two. The real showstopper is if the Operations Center can't deliver the dispatch release; that's the legal document prepared by the airline dispatcher that grants the flight permission to initiate the flight. Without that, it's a no-go. Even if Deltamatic were down, Flight Ops could fax the releases over, as the dispatch planning system is merely tied into Deltamatic to make local printout easier; it doesn't actually run on Deltamatic. These days with e-ticketing and more stringent DOT/Customs standards on accurate pax manifests, etc, having Deltamatic (ticketing/res) down is a show-stopper, but it wasn't always that way and the way these articles are written it leaves, in my mind, the open question about what parts were actually fubared. (me: ex-aircraft dispatcher for a DL-owned regional carrier.)