Crowdstrike, Microsoft could get sued over global IT outage that grounded flights

However, airlines and airports saw the most disruption in services with flights getting either delayed or cancelled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

What did Delta’s CEO say?

In the days following the outage, more than 5,000 flights were reportedly cancelled by the carrier. The downtime cost the company about $500 million as it had to manually reset 40,000 servers, Bastian said in an interview with CNBC.

Furthermore, Delta Airlines is being probed by the US Transportation Department which is looking into why the carrier took longer than other airlines to resume operations after the outage.

Criticising Microsoft and Crowdstrike, Bastian said, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?” However, it must be noted that Apple’s services such as iCloud have suffered disruptions in the past. He also called the Delta staff’s efforts to get systems running again as “nothing short of heroic” and offered each employee two free flight tickets.

How has Crowdstrike responded to Delta?

In its apology to Delta Airlines, Crowdstrike said that it was “highly disappointed by Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was grossly negligent or committed misconduct.”

“Any liability by CrowdStrike is contractually capped at an amount in the single-digit millions,” the company was quoted as saying, adding that it had offered the carrier assistance within hours of the incident.

“Additionally, CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no response,” the letter reportedly 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,” a Crowdstrike spokesperson was quoted as saying by Reuters.