Delta, CrowdStrike file dueling lawsuits as squabble continues

Dive Brief:

• Delta Air Lines and CrowdStrike filed suit against each other Friday in Georgia, the latest development in a squabble over the aftermath of a a faulty CrowdStrike software update released July 19.
• The airline is seeking compensation for the $500-million loss it says it incurred in the aftermath of an IT outage. In addition to the half-billion in costs, Delta is seeking legal fees and punitive damages, according to a copy of the court filing obtained by CIO Dive.
• CrowdStrike’s lawsuit pinned Delta’s slow recovery on the airline’s IT issues, and seeks to hold its liability over the incident to the terms of its service agreement, or two times the value of fees paid during the relevant contract term. Delta described CrowdStrike’s suit as “meritless” and said it planned to file a motion to get it dismissed, in an email to CIO Dive.

Dive Insight:

The suits filed Friday in two separate Georgia courts is the first formal step in the squabble after months of fiery legal threats.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC late July the airline planned to seek compensation from CrowdStrike and Microsoft in the aftermath of the outage. The company declined to say if it planned to file suit against Microsoft, which also pinned the responsibility back on Delta for its slow recovery.

The airline sector was among the hardest hit by the July outage, leading to tens of thousands of flights canceled or delayed in the following days. Delta, however, was the hardest hit among large national airlines, grounding more than 5,000 flights in five days. By contrast, United Airlines and American Airlines suffered fewer disruptions in the same time frame.

In its filing, Delta attributed the scope of the outage on CrowdStrike’s efforts to alter other operating systems through “uncertified and untested shortcuts that damaged and impaired its clients’ systems and businesses,” according to the filing. 

“CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised, for its own benefit and profit,” Delta said in the filing.