Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian says the airline faces $500 million in costs related to a global technology outage that disrupted emergency services, communications and thousands of businesses.
Speaking on CNBC, Bastian said Wednesday that the monetary amount represents lost revenue as well as “tens of millions of dollars a day in compensation and hotels” for the five-day period.
A week ago, CrowdStrike blamed a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to send erroneous data to millions of customer computers, triggering the global technology outage that grounded flights, took television broadcasts off the air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers.
The cybersecurity firm also outlined steps it will take to prevent the issue from recurring, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where they occur, and providing more details about the updates it plans.
Among airlines, Delta was by far the hardest hit by the outage, having to cancel thousands of flights because key systems were paralyzed by the incident.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating why Delta has not recovered as quickly as other airlines. Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary, said last week that the department would also examine Delta’s customer service, including “unacceptable” lines for assistance and reports that unaccompanied minors were stranded at airports.
Bastian told CNBC that Delta would seek damages for the outages. CrowdStrike has not made any offers to financially assist Delta so far, he added. It has offered free advice.
