Delta Air Lines’ service meltdown, which led to thousands of cancelled flights and a half million stranded customers, cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. And now it wants Microsoft and the cybersecurity firm that caused the problem to compensate it for at least some of its losses.
Delta has hired high-profile attorney David Boies’ law firm to seek damages from cyber security firm CrowdStrike and Microsoft for the massive service issues it suffered last week following a badly flawed software update caused problems in a key computer program.
The hiring of the firm of Boies Schiller Flexner, first reported by CNBC, was confirmed to CNN by a person familiar with the decision.
Delta’s costs could total between $325 million to $475 million, according to a note published Tuesday by Savanthi Syth, airline analyst for Raymond James.
Delta had no comment about questions about damages it would be seeking. Microsoft also had no comment.
“We are aware of the reporting, but have no knowledge of a lawsuit and have no further comment,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson told CNN.
The software update of Microsoft Windows systems sent out by CrowdStrike to its customers late on July 18 caused widespread computer outages at businesses around the globe. Although many businesses recovered within hours, Delta faced problems for days, particularly struggling to get its crucial crew-tracking software to work again.
Unable to find the pilots and flight attendants it needed, Delta was forced to cancel 6,300 flights across its mainline operations and its Endeavor Air feeder airline, which flies under the Delta Connection name, through Tuesday, July 23, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. That represented about 30% of its schedule. Another 9,300 of its flights were delayed, representing more than two-thirds of the flights it was able to complete in those five days. Delayed flights at the airline stayed elevated through the rest of the week.
Delta agreed to provide cash refunds to passengers who canceled their travel on the airline. The company also said it would compensate customers for the cost of flights on other airlines, hotels and meals they purchased in order to complete their travel plans. It also increased the pay of crew members for the week after the original outage.
Who is David Boies?
Boies and his firm won $290 million in 2023 from JPMorgan Chase for Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse victims. He also was one of the attorneys who helped win the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft in 2000.
He also an investor, board member and attorney for Theranos, the blood testing firm whose founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes is now serving time in prison for defrauding investors.
Boeis was part of the defense team of Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer who was was convicted in 2020 of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape and in 2023 for sexual assault. Weinstein has had his 2020 conviction overturned on appeal but faces the possibility of a new trial on those charges.
And Boies was the lead counsel for former Vice-President Al Gore in his unsuccessful case before the Supreme Court related to the vote counting in the 2000 presidential election. He was co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Perry v. Brown, the Supreme Court case that established the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.
