Microsoft Also Claims That Delta Denied Assistance During July Outage

Tech giant echoes CrowdStrike’s assertion that the cybersecurity company had offered IT assistance during outages, which the airline declined.

Caleb Revill

Wednesday, August 07, 2024 at 12:00 PM ET

Verified

A Delta Boeing 757-200. [AirlineGeeks/William Derrickson]

Key Takeaways:

Delta Air Lines publicly blamed Microsoft and CrowdStrike for IT outages in mid-July, which reportedly cost the airline $500 million.
Both Microsoft and CrowdStrike have sharply refuted Delta's accusations, calling them "incomplete, false, misleading, and damaging" to their reputations.
Both tech companies assert that Delta repeatedly declined their offers of extensive, free assistance to resolve the outage issues.
Microsoft's attorney suggested Delta's primary difficulties stemmed from crew-tracking systems serviced by other providers (like IBM), not Microsoft Windows or Azure, and warned of a vigorous legal defense against any litigation.

See a mistake? Contact us.

A lawyer representing Microsoft responded sharply to Delta Air Lines’ public blame of the company and CrowdStrike for IT outages that reportedly lost the airline $500 million in revenue the week of July 19.

Microsoft attorney Mark Cheffo said on Tuesday that Delta’s public comments are incomplete, false, misleading, and damaging to the tech giant and its reputation in a written response to the airline posted on X by aviation reporter David Slotnick.