CEO of Delta: “Can you tell me when you last heard about a significant outage at Apple?”

 

Delta Air Lines experienced a significant IT outage recently, leading to extensive flight cancellations and delays. The CEO of Delta, Ed Bastian, attributed the disruption to a faulty software update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company. This issue affected key systems, causing more than 6,500 flight cancellations and impacting over half a million passengers since the outage began.

In an attempt to reassure customers, Bastian stated that the worst of the outage was over, and operations were beginning to normalize. He mentioned that Delta expected to return to regular operations by Thursday. However, the U.S. Department of Transportation has launched an investigation into Delta’s response to the outage, citing concerns over the airline’s slow recovery compared to others and the unacceptable customer service during the crisis.

Bastian, who was in Paris for the Olympics, emphasized Delta’s commitment to compensating affected passengers with meals, hotel accommodations, and travel vouchers. He also highlighted that Delta would offer additional airline miles as a gesture of apology.

In a notable statement, Bastian drew a comparison to Apple, asking, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?” This remark underscores Delta’s frustration and intention to reassess its partnerships with tech providers like Microsoft and CrowdStrike following the costly outage, which is estimated to have cost the airline $500 million.