Delta Air warns of $500m revenue hit from CrowdStrike outage
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US carrier Delta cancelled about 7,000 flights over five days, stranding hundreds of thousands of travellers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK – Delta Air Lines on Aug 8 warned of a US$380 million (S$500 million) hit to its revenue in the current quarter from operational disruptions resulting from the CrowdStrike-caused outage.
A July software update by global cyber-security company CrowdStrike triggered system problems for Microsoft customers, including many airlines.
The disruptions persisted at Delta even as they subsided the next day at other major US carriers.
The Atlanta-based carrier cancelled about 7,000 flights over five days, stranding hundreds of thousands of travellers.
Delta also faces an investigation from the US Transportation Department for the disruptions.
In a regulatory filing, chief executive Ed Bastian said the airline has suffered a hit of at least US$500 million because of the outage and is pursuing legal claims against CrowdStrike and Microsoft.
“An operational disruption of this length and magnitude is unacceptable, and our customers and employees deserve better,” Mr Bastian said.
Both CrowdStrike and Microsoft have rejected Delta’s claim that they should be blamed for flight disruptions.
Microsoft this week said its preliminary review suggested that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently had not modernised its information technology infrastructure. REUTERS
