Microsoft hits back at Delta: Airline refused help after CrowdStrike outage, even ignoring an email from Satya Nadella himself
The fallout from the global CrowdStrike outage is becoming increasingly clear, especially when it comes to one of the incident’s most high-profile victims.
The outage, which crippled millions of Windows devices around the world, forced airlines to cancel thousands of flights, potentially causing huge losses.
US airline Delta was hit particularly hard, reportedly having to cancel over 5,000 flights and manually reset 40,000 servers. Reports say the company’s CEO has been less than supportive of the recovery process, with several high-profile offers of help being ignored, despite the company now seeking massive compensation from CrowdStrike and Microsoft.
Shareholders sue CrowdStrike after outage
Correspondence from Mark Cheffo, co-chair of Dechert’s global litigation practice and the attorney representing Microsoft, shows that the company offered Delta free help after the incident. Employees at the company contacted their counterparts at the airline every day between July 19 and 23, but the offer was declined.
One letter Cheffo cited, sent by Microsoft to a Delta employee on July 22, offering assistance, saw the final response read: “All is well. Cool, I’ll let you know and thanks.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even emailed Delta CEO Ed Bastian offering help, but Cheffo noted that the latter “never responded.”
This is despite the fact that Bastian recently stated that the airline had “no choice” but to seek damages from Microsoft and CrowdStrike over the disruption, which he estimates has cost the company approximately $500 million.
Chieffo’s response to Delta’s complaint was described as “incomplete, inaccurate, misleading, and damaging to Microsoft and its reputation.” He said Microsoft was still trying to figure out why the airline took so long to recover compared to some of its competitors, citing outdated systems and reliance on third-party vendors (particularly IBM).
“Our preliminary investigation suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, appears not to have modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or for the benefit of its pilots and flight attendants,” Cheffo wrote.
“It quickly becomes apparent that Delta likely declined Microsoft’s assistance because the IT system they had the most difficulty recovering — the crew tracking and scheduling system — was maintained by other technology providers, such as IBM, because it runs on those providers’ systems, not Microsoft Windows or Azure,” Cheffo wrote in his letter.
Delta responded by saying the company “has a long track record of investing in safe, reliable and high-quality service for our customers and employees.”
“Since 2016, Delta has invested billions of dollars in IT capital expenditures, in addition to the billions spent annually on IT operating expenses,” the company added.
The company claimed its stock price fell by 32% within 12 days of the incident, resulting in a loss of $25 billion in market value.
Through CNBC