CrowdStrike has denied that the cybersecurity giant is responsible for Delta Air Lines’ lengthy flight delays following a global outage on July 19 and said it would “respond aggressively” if the airline takes legal action.
Delta Air Lines fired back last week after CEO Ed Bastian blamed CrowdStrike for the airline’s $500 million loss and threatened to sue over the gaffe.
“We are extremely disappointed with Delta’s allegations that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately and strongly deny any allegations that the company engaged in gross negligence or wrongdoing,” the airline said in a letter to Delta’s general counsel on Sunday.
“If Delta pursues this path, it will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike promptly, transparently and constructively held itself accountable for its actions, while Delta did not,” the letter added.
The address Prominent lawyer David Boies said: We are seeking compensation from CrowdStrike on behalf of Delta.
“The public pose of potentially filing a frivolous lawsuit against CrowdStrike, a longtime partner, is not constructive for any party,” lawyers for the cybersecurity company told The Post in a statement on Monday.
The Post has reached out to Delta for comment.
Delta Air Lines canceled more than 6,000 flights over six days after a faulty CrowdStrike update crashed millions of Windows-powered systems around the world, halting airlines, hospitals and other industries.
In an interview last week, Bastian said the outage cost Delta “$500 million in five days.”
He said Delta will likely seek damages from CrowdStrike as a result of the losses, which one CNBC panelist noted could be enough to bankrupt the cybersecurity company.
“We have no choice,” Bastian told CNBC.
CrowdStrike said its liability was limited to a few million dollars.
Bastian also claimed that CrowdStrike offered him no assistance beyond “free consulting advice.”
The company denied the allegations in a letter, saying, “CrowdStrike’s CEO reached out directly to Delta’s CEO to offer on-the-ground support but did not receive a response.”
Delta Airlines’ delays affected half a million passengers, and the airline took longer to recover than any other major airline.
The Atlanta-based airline is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is looking into why it took so long to recover.
Bastian said the company had to manually reset 40,000 computers after the power outage.
“It was a terrible situation,” Bastian said. “We had the heaviest product in the industry. [Microsoft and CrowdStrike]we were the hardest hit in terms of resilience.”
But CrowdStrike argued that it was unfair for Delta to shift the blame.
The company questioned why it took Delta longer than its competitors to restore operations and why Delta declined to bring CrowdStrike experts on-site to help.
The letter said Delta’s threats of lawsuits “furthered the misleading narrative that CrowdStrike was responsible for Delta’s IT decisions and response to the outage.”
