CEO of Delta Air Lines Ed Bastian reports that the company will have to pay $500 million in expenses as a result of last week’s worldwide tech failure, which affected thousands of businesses, emergency services, and communications.
Speaking on CNBC on Wednesday, Bastian stated that for the five days, “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels” are included in the monetary number. It also reflects missed revenue.
A week ago, CrowdStrike attributed the global tech disruption that caused planes to be grounded, TV broadcasts to be halted, and banks, hospitals, and retailers to be affected to a hole in an upgrade that enabled its cybersecurity systems to push malicious data out to millions of client devices.
The cybersecurity startup CrowdStrike also detailed the steps it would take to keep the issue from happening again, including distributing upgrades gradually, granting users more discretion over when and where they happen, and offering further information about the patches it intends to release.
Delta was the hardest hit among airlines by the outage, having to cancel thousands of flights due to the incident severely disrupting key systems.
Why Delta did not rebound as rapidly as other airlines is being looked into by the US Department of Transportation. The government will also look into Delta’s customer service, including “unacceptable” wait times for help and allegations of unaccompanied children getting lost at airports, according to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s announcement last week.
Bastian mentioned on CNBC that Delta plans to seek compensation for the disruptions. He also noted that while CrowdStrike has provided free consulting advice, it has yet to offer any financial assistance to Delta.
