Delta Sued Over Inadequate Refunds Following CrowdStrike Outage

Delta Air Lines Inc. was hit with a proposed class action alleging the company failed to properly refund fliers or provide passengers with promised meal, hotel, and transportation vouchers after CrowdStrike’s July 19 software outage caused widespread delays and cancellations.

“Delta’s failure to recover from the CrowdStrike outage left passengers stranded in airports across the country for days, in many cases thousands of miles from home,” according to the complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

The airline failed to promptly refund customers and instead offered e-credits, while making “no mention to passengers of their rights under federal law to receive cash refunds,” the consumers alleged. “Delta’s misrepresentation resulted in thousands of passengers forgoing their right to a refund by accepting the offered e-credits instead.”

Delta declined to comment.

The consumers alleged Delta failed to live up to commitments to passengers when cancellations happen due to factors within the company’s control. Delta promised customers meal vouchers, complimentary hotel accommodations, and ground transport, the complaint said.

The consumers bring claims for breach of contract, common law fraud, unjust enrichment, and violations of state consumer protection statutes. They’re seeking class certification and damages.

The consumers seek to represent all passengers whose Delta flights were canceled between July 19, when the outage began, and July 31. They propose California, Colorado, Florida, and Washington state subclasses in the alternative.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a catastrophic IT failure stemming from a CrowdStrike software update that crashed millions of devices relying on the Microsoft Windows operating system in July. Thousands of flights were impacted as airlines grappled with the global software meltdown.

CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm providing endpoint protection software, is also facing suits from consumers and investors over the outage.

The outage also had repercussions on Olympic travelers when Delta Air Lines Inc., the official airline of Team USA, was devastated by the outage as it attempted to transport almost 2,000 athletes, staff, and equipment to Paris.

Following the outage, Delta canceled thousands of flights. While other airlines had mostly recovered by the Monday following the outage, Delta continued canceling flights the week after the incident.

Though Delta announced operations had returned to normal by July 25, the consumers alleged passengers continued reporting cancellations through the end of the month.

The US Department of Transportation announced it had opened a probe into Delta’s handling of the glitch after 3,000 passengers filed complaints with the department.

The consumers are represented by Webb Klase & Lemond LLC and Sauder Schelkopf LLC.

The case is Bajra v. Delta Air Lines Inc., N.D. Ga., No. 1:24-cv-03477, complaint filed 8/6/24.