CrowdStrike refuses ‘Delta Air lines’ claims regarding flight problems

• Delta CEO Ed Bastian claims the outage cost the airline $500 million and plans to seek compensation from the cybersecurity firm.
• CrowdStrike denies any allegations of gross negligence or misconduct.
• Delta canceled over 6,000 flights over six days, affecting over 500,000 passengers.

On Sunday, CrowdStrike rejected Delta Air Lines’ claim that it was responsible for flight disruptions caused by a global outage on July 19, which resulted from a faulty update. CrowdStrike suggested it had minimal potential liability. Last week, Delta CEO Ed Bastian stated that the outage had cost the US airline $500 million and announced plans to pursue legal action to seek compensation from the cybersecurity firm.

CrowdStrike reiterated its apology to the airline operator but expressed strong disappointment in a letter from an external lawyer, rejecting Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately. The company firmly denied any allegations of gross negligence or misconduct.

Delta canceled over 6,000 flights over six days, affecting more than 500,000 passengers. It is under investigation by the US Transportation Department for why its recovery from the outage took significantly longer than other airlines.

The CrowdStrike letter stated that “any liability by CrowdStrike is contractually capped at an amount in the single-digit millions.”

Delta declined to comment on the CrowdStrike letter. Within hours of the outage, CrowdStrike contacted Delta to offer assistance.

“Additionally, CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no response,” the letter said.

Bastian told the news last week that CrowdStrike had offered “free consulting advice to help us.”

Last week, Delta informed US lawmakers in a letter seen by Reuters that CrowdStrike’s faulty update “impacted more than half of Delta’s computers, including many of Delta’s workstations at every airport in the Delta network.”

The letter added Delta’s “complex IT system which distributes and synchronizes all our data, including the data that feeds our crew tracking and gating software, required manual recovery.”

The CrowdStrike letter added that if Delta files suit, it will need to answer “why Delta’s competitors, facing similar challenges, all restored operations much faster” and “why Delta turned down free onsite help from CrowdStrike professionals who assisted many other customers to restore operations much more quickly than Delta.”

A CrowdStrike spokesperson said “Public posturing about potentially bringing a meritless lawsuit against CrowdStrike as a long-time partner is not constructive to any party. We hope that Delta will agree to work cooperatively to find a resolution.”

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