Delta CEO offers employees free flights after CrowdStrike-Microsoft chaos

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian on Friday offered employees two free travel passes to thank staff members who were caught in massive disruptions last month sparked by a botched CrowdStrike software update that stranded 1000’s of shoppers and crew.

Delta had more trouble than competitors in recovering from the outages that took 1000’s of Windows machines offline around the globe, affecting industries from health care to banking.

The carrier canceled greater than 5,000 flights between July 19 and July 24, greater than it did in all of 2019, in response to FlightAware. Bastian said earlier this week that the incident cost the corporate about $500 million, a sum that is the same as about 40% of Delta’s second-quarter profit. A crew-tracking platform was a contributor to the cancellations and disruptions, the airline has said.

Delta told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that the airline needed to manually reset 40,000 servers.

The disruption “has been a humbling moment for our company,” Bastian said in his note on Friday, which was seen by CNBC. “I comprehend it’s been extremely difficult, and I’m deeply sorry for what you will have endured. An operational disruption of this length and magnitude is solely unacceptable — you and our customers deserve higher.”

Upward of 4,000 Delta flight attendants picked up greater than 6,100 trips through the disruptions, receiving extra pay, in response to one other Delta staff memo on Friday.

“Your efforts throughout have been nothing in need of heroic,” Bastian told staff.

The 2 “positive space” passes Bastian offered employees are confirmed seats like a customer would have, different from the free standby flying airline employees often do if there can be found seats.

The Delta organizing committee of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which is in the midst of a campaign to unionize Delta’s flight attendants, said the offer of passes “just is not going to chop it.” The organizing committee, in a written statement, said airline management routinely makes “meager adjustments to maintain the operation running without making changes significant enough to forestall a future meltdown.”

Delta’s operation has since stabilized however the flight cancellations and delays stranded 1000’s and scarred Delta’s high reliability standings. Its executives steadily indicate Delta’s successful work to win over each leisure and company customers who’re willing to pay more to fly the carrier, marketing itself as a premium airline.

A Delta spokesman earlier this week said the airline has processed “1000’s” of refunds and reimbursement requests. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating Delta’s disruptions, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week. Similar disruptions at other carriers, reminiscent of the huge 2022 holiday meltdown at Southwest Airlines after winter storms, have highlighted how technology issues can severely disrupt air travel.

Bastian said Delta plans to pursue legal motion against CrowdStrike and Microsoft “to recuperate our losses attributable to the outage” and that it has hired law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.

Microsoft declined to comment. CrowdStrike said it has “no knowledge of a lawsuit and don’t have any further comment.”