Delta Is Reportedly Hiring a Power Attorney to Seek Compensation From Microsoft, CrowdStrike After Mass Outage The incident led to 7,000 flights being canceled.
By Emily Rella Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Delta has reportedly hired power attorney David Boies to seek damages after a CrowdStrike update caused widespread outages and affected the airline's internal systems.
- Boies has represented a number of controversial clients, including Harvey Weinstein and Theranos.
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After a disastrous outage left millions of Microsoft customers with dreaded blue screens and canceled and delayed thousands of flights, Delta Airlines has reportedly hired a big-name lawyer to seek compensation from CrowdStrike.
CNBC is reporting that Delta has hired attorney David Boies, 83, to represent the company in seeking damages after the July 19 CrowdStrike update caused widespread outages on Microsoft-run devices and internal issues at Delta.
Related: Delta CEO Speaks Out About Flight Cancelations, CrowdStrike
The update specifically affected a crew-tracking tool, which made it difficult for the airline to handle business as usual, said Delta CEO Ed Bastian.
"While our initial efforts to stabilize the operations were difficult and frustratingly slow and complex, we have made good progress this week and the worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us," Bastian wrote in a memo last week.
Boies' law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, has a roster of well-known former clients, including victims of Jeffrey Epstein, Theranos, and Harvey Weinstein.
Related: Read the Memo from CrowdStrike Explaining Massive IT Outage
Delta has yet to confirm CNBC's report as of press time, but CNN says they received confirmation from a "person familiar with the decision." Both Delta and Microsoft declined to comment to CNN.
It's estimated that Delta lost between $350 million and $500 million amid the outages that caused nearly 7,000 flights to be canceled and over 176,000 scorned customers.
Delta was down over 5.9% year over year as of Wednesday afternoon.
