Washington, 7 August 2024 (TDI): Microsoft has blamed Delta Air Lines for its weeklong bout of cancelations last month, claiming its aging technology caused the company to recover far slower from the global tech outage than its rivals.
It also claimed Delta turned down help after the CrowdStrike bug led to “blue screens of death” on Windows devices.
Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and Delta CrowdStrike have been in a war of words since the airline hired a high-profile attorney to seek compensation from Microsoft and CrowdStrike.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian criticized CrowdStrike in an interview last week and said the computer problems cost Delta 500 million dollars. CrowdStrike’s flawed software update caused widespread computer outages on July 19 at Delta and hundreds of other companies around the world.
CrowdStrike then fired back on Sunday, saying the airline had refused offers of help to solve the problem faster.
On Tuesday, Microsoft joined in. In a letter by attorney Mark Cheffo, the technology company said that even though Microsoft’s software did not cause the outage, it immediately jumped in and offered to help Delta at no charge. Microsoft employees asked Delta if they equired assistance every day from July 19 to 23, the letter said.
On the morning of July 22, a Microsoft employee, aware that Delta was having more problem recovering than any other airline, texted a Delta employee to say, just checking in and no pressure to reply, but if you can think of anything your Microsoft team can be assisting with today, just say the word, the letter noted.
The Delta employee replied, saying ‘all good. Cool will let you know and thank you, I added.
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But meanwhile, the computer issues at Delta knocked its key crew tracking system offline for the better part of a week, making it impossible for the company to find the pilots and flight attendants it required to fly its aircraft. While other airlines were quick to resume normal operations after the CrowdStrike outage, Delta was forced to cancel about 30 percent of its schedule over those five days, leaving an estimated half-million passengers stranded.
It took many days after that to re-book affected passengers on other flights and return their checked bags.
