Delta Bragged About Service. Then CrowdStrike Stepped In.
The global computer failure struck the airline the hardest, exposing the need for expensive redundant systems to keep the planes moving.
Delta canceled 6,700 flights.
Photographer: Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
The aviation gods seem to be easily provoked by boastful airline executives. That’s the colorful explanation for why Delta Air Lines Inc. was dealt the worst blow by CrowdStrike’s epic mistake on a routine software update.
The software glitch, which resulted in the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on computers around the world and across industries, struck at Delta’s pilot scheduling system and rendered the most profitable US airline helpless to match crews to aircraft. What was done almost automatically through algorithms had to be performed by hand. That’s impossible for an airline with about 17,000 pilots and almost 1,000 mainline aircraft. No wonder the airline had about 6,700 canceled flights that may cost it $350 million, Conor Cunningham, an analyst with Melius Research, wrote in a note on Wednesday. Citigroup predicts Delta’s hit could be as much as $500 million, and the airline’s shares have tumbled 5.5% in the last three trading days.
Other airlines were caught up in the outage, which erupted from the friendly fire of a July 19 software update that impacted about 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices in just an hour before the mistake was caught. United Airlines Holdings Inc., American Airlines Group Inc. and other carriers had to cancel hundreds of flights, but their pain wasn’t nearly of the same magnitude nor duration as Delta’s.