On July 23, 2024, in Los Angeles, California, passengers waited in line at the check-in floor of the Delta Air Lines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and the flight monitor showed that the flight was delayed.
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mass strike say sunday Delta Airlines On-site help was denied during last month’s massive power outage, which resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week that the outage occurred during one of the busiest times of the year, causing massive flight cancellations and costing the airline approximately $500 million, including Customer Indemnification. He said the airline had “no choice” but to seek damages.
Bastian told staff Friday that the airline has notified CrowdStrike and Microsoft The company “plans to pursue legal claims” to cover losses caused by the outage and has hired the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.
In response, CrowdStrike attorney and co-managing partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan Michael Carlinsky wrote to Delta’s attorney David Boies on Sunday, saying Delta’s threat of litigation “fosters a misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible Delta Air Lines’ IT Decisions and Response to the Outage.
He said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz contacted Bastian “to offer on-site assistance but received no response.”
Between a July 19 outage caused by a failed software update and July 25, Delta canceled more than 5,000 flights, more than its competitors.
CrowdStrike’s stock has fallen more than 36% since the outage affected millions of computers running the company’s software on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The outage affected industries including banking, healthcare and air travel.
“If Delta follows this path, Delta will be required to explain to the public, shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike is held accountable for its actions—quickly, transparently, and constructively—” Kalinsky said in the letter. —and Delta Air Lines does not.
He said Delta must retain a range of documents, including documents describing its information technology infrastructure, IT business continuity plans and its handling of outages over the past five years.
CrowdStrike’s contractual liability is capped in the single-digit millions, the letter said. Delta Air Lines did not comment on the letter Sunday night. CrowdStrike said in a separate statement that it hopes “Delta agrees to work together to find a solution.”
“We’re doing everything we can to take care of our customers during this time,” Bastian said in an interview on “Squawk Box” Wednesday. “If you want to be a priority in the Delta ecosystem on the technology side, you have to test these things. “You can’t tell us we’ve made a mistake when we’re operating mission critical 24/7.”
CrowdStrike vowed to release future software updates in phases based on preliminary post-incident reports.
On July 30, CrowdStrike shareholders filed a lawsuit against the company in Texas federal court and demanded compensation for investment losses.
CrowdStrike will report fiscal second-quarter results on August 28.
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