A Delta Airlines Airbus A319-114 taxis at Los Angeles International Airport after arrival from Las Vegas on May 5, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images
Delta Air Lines on Thursday said the previous month CrowdStrike the outage and subsequent mass flight cancellations cost it an estimated $550 million, and it reiterated that it is seeking damages against the company as well as Microsoft.
The financial impact includes $380 million in revenue in the current quarter “primarily due to refunding customers for canceled flights and providing customer compensation in the form of cash and SkyMiles,” the Atlanta-based airline said in a securities filing.
The incident, which canceled about 7,000 flights, also meant a $170 million expense “related to the technology outage and subsequent operational recovery,” the carrier said, adding that its fuel bill would likely be $50 million lower due to of cleaning. flights.
Delta has struggled more than its competitors to recover from the July 19 outage that knocked out millions of Windows-based computers around the world. The holidays occurred at the height of the summer travel season, stranding thousands of Delta customers, a rare occurrence for the carrier that advertises itself as a premium carrier receiving a top reliability rating.
“An operational disruption of this length and magnitude is unacceptable, and our customers and employees deserve better,” CEO Ed Bastian said in the filing. “Since the incident, our people have returned the operation to an industry-leading position that is consistent with the level of performance our customers expect from Delta.”
Delta’s cancellations in the days following the outage surpassed its tally for all of 2019. The U.S. Department of Transportation last month said it was investigating Delta’s response to the disruption and flight cancellations.
CrowdStrike responded in a statement Thursday that Delta “continues to push a misleading narrative” and said the company’s chief security officer was in “direct contact” with Delta’s chief information officer and chief security officer “within hours of the incident , providing information and providing support.”
In a letter to CrowdStrike’s attorney Thursday, Delta attorney David Boies said 1.3 million customers were affected by the outage and that it shut down 37,000 Delta computers.
Attorneys for CrowdStrike and Microsoft earlier this week responded to Delta, saying they have reached out to Delta for help. Microsoft said Wednesday that Delta has underinvested in its technology compared to its competitors.
“If CrowdStrike is truly seeking to avoid a lawsuit from Delta, then it must accept real responsibility for its actions and compensate Delta for the serious damage it has caused to Delta’s business, reputation and goodwill,” it said. Boies in the letter to CrowdStrike on Thursday.
About 60 percent of Delta’s “mission-critical applications” and their data depend on Microsoft and CrowdStrike, he said, adding that the outage “required significant human intervention by skilled crew experts to guide the people and the aircraft of Delta in the correct locations to resume normally. safe operation”.
