CrowdStrike Disputes Negligence Claims in Letter to Delta Attorney

Software company says it offered free on-site assistance to help the airline fix IT issues during the outage.

Caleb Revill

Tuesday, August 06, 2024 at 10:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

A Delta A220 (Credit: AirlineGeeks/William Derrickson]

Key Takeaways:

CrowdStrike vehemently denies responsibility for Delta Air Lines' $500 million IT outage losses, rejecting claims of gross negligence and calling Delta's litigation threats misleading.
CrowdStrike asserts it promptly offered assistance, an available fix, and even on-site help from its CEO, which Delta reportedly declined.
CrowdStrike suggests Delta's prolonged outage was due to its own IT decisions and response, challenging Delta to explain why competitors recovered faster and why it declined offered aid.
Preparing for potential litigation, CrowdStrike has demanded Delta preserve extensive documents related to its IT infrastructure, incident response plans, and past outages, while noting its contractual liability is capped.

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Temperatures are rising in the blame game between software company CrowdStrike and Delta Air Lines over responsibilities for the massive IT outage that impacted air traffic across the U.S. on July 19.

According to a letter posted on X by aviation reporter David Slotnick on Sunday, CrowdStrike attorney Michael Carlinsky told Delta attorney David Boies that it was misleading to say CrowdStrike was responsible for Delta’s IT decisions in response to the outage. Boies was reportedly retained by Delta to seek damages from both CrowdStrike and Microsoft after airline CEO Ed Bastian said the outages cost the company $500 million.