Crowdstrike Rejects Responsibility For Delta Air Lines Flight Cancellations

Since July, Delta Air Lines has had issues getting its operations back to normal. While a bit of a transition time is expected after the widespread IT outage, the airline has experienced longer-than-normal complications. The popular airline has seemingly gone through a domino effect which has led to thousands of flight cancellations.

Crowdstrike is the cybersecurity company that sent out a flawed software update that impacted computers and companies using Microsoft Windows. The company has issued a statement about the outage in relation to Delta’s cancellation issues.

Crowdstrike On Delta Cancellations

Delta Air Lines CEO, Ed Bastian, made claims about the damages caused by the July outage on Sunday, August 4. The global IT outage happened during one of the busiest times of the year. Due to this and the airline’s delayed recovery from its systems being down, the outage has cost the company millions of dollars. The airline canceled more than 5,000 flights from the time of the July 19 outage until July 25.

To be exact, the outage and the following flight delays and cancellations have cost the airline around $500 million. Due to the mass cancellations, the airline seemingly has no choice but to seek damages from Crowdstrike and Microsoft. Delta plans to pursue legal claims to recover its losses from the outage, but this plan of action will require IT companies to take responsibility for the losses.

In response to this, Crowdstrike’s lawyer wrote to Delta’s lawyer. The companies’ legal representation made it clear that the airline’s litigation threats made it appear like Crowdstrike was solely responsible for Delta’s response to the outage. The response commented on Delta’s IT decisions and lack of response to the cybersecurity company. Despite Crowdstrike’s offer of onsite assistance after the outage, Delta has not fully recovered or taken accountability for its part in handling the outages.

What This Means For Travelers

There has been a lot going on after the IT outages and CrowdStrike has been taking the brunt of things. Its shareholders have even filed a suit against the company and sought damages for their declining investments. The cybersecurity company hopes that Delta Air Lines will work with them to create a resolution. In the future, Crowdstrike has agreed to release software updates in stages. This move will likely keep the damage done to a minimum even if flawed software updates are sent out. The company also commits to preliminary post-incident reports.

In addition to this, Microsoft has yet to respond to Delta’s statement regarding legal action. The pending legal action (and probable battle) will likely impact travelers if it leads to a large divestment from Crowdstrike and Microsoft. Travelers will hopefully not be able to notice tangible or negative differences in Delta’s services if the legal situation escalates.