Delta Airlines lost $550 million due to CrowdStrike outage, leading to 7,000 flight cancellations

From CNBC: 2024-08-08 18:00:13

On May 5, 2024, a Delta Airlines Airbus A319-114 aircraft arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Las Vegas. The resulting CrowdStrike outage caused mass flight cancellations, costing Delta $550 million. This included a $380 million revenue hit from refunds and compensation, a $170 million expense for the outage, and $50 million saved on fuel due to canceled flights.

Delta struggled to recover from the July 19 outage, canceling 7,000 flights and taking a hit to its reliability reputation. CEO Ed Bastian acknowledged the unacceptable disruption and pledged to return operations to a high standard. The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating Delta’s response to the outage and cancellations. CrowdStrike claimed they offered Delta support but weren’t properly acknowledged.

Delta’s lawyer stated that 1.3 million customers and 37,000 computers were affected by the outage, emphasizing the severe damage to their business. Microsoft criticized Delta for not investing adequately in technology compared to competitors. Delta is seeking compensation for the reputational and financial harm caused by the disruption, emphasizing the dependency on Microsoft and CrowdStrike for critical operations.



Read more at CNBC: Delta says chaos after CrowdStrike outage cost it $550 million