Delta Airlines says it lost $500 million due to the IT outage after tying into CrowdStrike

In a fresh letter sent to CrowdStrike on Thursday, Delta Airlines voiced their frustrations as the two businesses continued to exchange barbs following the significant worldwide network failure that occurred last month.

The cybersecurity business was accused of "negligence" by the US-based carrier, which said it had lost at least $500 million (£392 million) and had to cancel hundreds of flights due to the outage.

CrowdStrike refuted being the only cause of Delta's flight interruptions, claiming that they persisted even after other carriers resumed service.

Since then, a class-action lawsuit brought by passengers who were impacted has targeted Delta.

CrowdStrike was the source of the global issue on July 19, having distributed a faulty software update to a vast number of its users.

Microsoft calculated that as a result, 8.5 million Windows machines were deactivated globally.

Even after other airlines seemed to have recovered, Delta Airlines' services continued to be affected for several days following the outage. Over the course of five days, Delta cancelled around 7,000 flights, and the US Department of Transportation is currently looking into the delays.

Since then, the airline has accused Microsoft and CrowdStrike of causing the interruptions and has vowed to sue the two businesses.

Following the disruption, a lawsuit was launched against Delta on behalf of the customers whose flights were cancelled, putting the airline in legal hot water.

"No other US airline had cancelled one-tenth as many flights," according to the lawsuit.

In addition, it stated that Delta had requested signatures from customers waiving Delta's legal claims and that the airline had neglected to adequately compensate customers.

Microsoft Office 365 is used by several airlines for scheduling. Those systems had broken due to the CrowdStrike outage, thereby they had no choice but to schedule manually.

Since then, CrowdStrike's shareholders have filed a lawsuit against the firm, claiming that it made "false and misleading" claims regarding their software testing.

(Sources: bbc.co.uk)