Delta CEO: CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage cost the airline $500M

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian announced that a recent IT outage, caused by a faulty software update from CrowdStrike, will cost the airline approximately $500 million. The outage, which affected thousands of Microsoft systems globally, led to the cancellation of over 5,000 flights, significantly disrupting operations. Bastian indicated that the financial impact includes lost revenue and substantial daily costs for customer compensation and accommodations over five days. Delta is seeking damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft, emphasizing the need for accountability in mission-critical operations. The airline had to manually reset 40,000 servers, and the outage caused further complications in matching flight crews to planes. This incident has drawn comparisons to a previous disruption experienced by Southwest Airlines and has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Despite the severity of the situation, CrowdStrike has not offered financial assistance, only providing consulting support. Delta has engaged attorney David Boies to pursue claims against both companies, highlighting the importance of protecting shareholders and the airline's reputation. Bastian criticized the lack of adequate testing for software updates that impact operational systems, underscoring the need for reliability in technology used by airlines.