CROWDSTRIKE Holdings said the leadership of Delta Air Lines failed to respond to an offer for assistance in the wake of last month’s catastrophic system outage that led to thousands of cancelled flights and a federal investigation of the US carrier.
The allegation, in a letter on Sunday (Aug 4) from attorneys for the technology firm, builds upon CrowdStrike’s claim last week that Delta rejected its repeated attempts to help. CrowdStrike said on Sunday that its chief executive officer, George Kurtz, tried to connect with his counterpart at the airline, Delta CEO Ed Bastian.
“CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no response,” according to the letter, which was signed by Michael Carlinsky, co-managing partner of law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
In a separate e-mailed statement, CrowdStrike said that it hopes Delta will “agree to work cooperatively to find a resolution”.
Delta was not immediately available for comment outside of regular US business hours.
The Atlanta, Georgia-based carrier was by far the worst hit airline as it struggled to normalise flight operations several days after the outage. Delta said it took a US$500 million charge after cancelling more than 5,500 flights in the several days that followed the initial CrowdStrike outage.
Spirit Airlines said the outage that occurred in mid-July would contribute to a US$7.2 million negative hit to third-quarter operating income. Meanwhile, Tony Fernandes, the co-founder of one of South-east Asia’s largest low-cost carriers, AirAsia, has also demanded compensation for the disruption. BLOOMBERG
