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Delta Air Lines chief executive Ed Bastian has said the IT outage caused by a botched CrowdStrike update earlier in July, which grounded thousands of its planes, will cost the company $500mn.
Bastian told CNBC that Delta had “no choice” but to seek damages from the disruptions. “You can’t come into a mission critical 24/7 operation and tell us we have a bug,” he said.
Microsoft has estimated that about 8.5mn Windows devices were affected by the faulty update from CrowdStrike, which stranded airline passengers, interrupted hospital appointments and took broadcasters off air around the world.
Atlanta-based carrier Delta took longer than many of its rivals to recover from the outages, prompting the US Department of Transportation to open an investigation last week.
Bastian told CNBC that CrowdStrike “haven’t offered anything” to make up for the disruption at Delta: “Free consulting advice to help us — that’s the extent of it.”
Responding to Bastian’s comments, CrowdStrike said: “We are aware of the reporting, but have no knowledge of a lawsuit and have no further comment.”
The IT outage caused sweeping disruption to passengers around the world, as some airlines grounded their planes and check-in systems failed at airports.
Several European airlines have looked into seeking damages for the costs incurred during the disruption, although no decisions have been made, according to a person familiar with the matter.
But analysts at Deutsche Bank said they believed that Crowdstrike’s liability was “capped at no more than the price for which customers paid for its software”.
Delta, along with other major US airlines United and American, took the unusual step of briefly grounding all its planes as the disruption began on the morning of July 19.
But while its rivals were able to restore their flight schedules over that weekend, Delta’s problems continued into the following week, with more than 6,000 flights eventually cancelled.
The airline also faced criticism for its customer service during the disruption, with the US government opening an investigation following reports of people waiting eight hours to get through on the phone and lines of 100 people growing at airports.
“Every other airline got back on its feet within a day or two. Delta actually seemed to move in the opposite direction, which is why we are paying special attention . . . we are investigating with an eye towards accountability over that breakdown,” said US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg last week.
CrowdStrike has vowed to improve its internal testing of updates, as it seeks to avoid a repeat of the widespread disruption that was triggered by a faulty update for Windows customers of its Falcon security software.
The company’s chief executive George Kurtz has also been summoned by the US Congress subcommittee on cyber security and infrastructure protection to explain CrowdStrike’s role in what “some have claimed to be the largest IT outage in history”.
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