Delta CEO reveals IT outage costs $500 million

San Francisco, Aug 1
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the massive IT outage, earlier this month, cost the company $500 million.

He said the figure included not just lost revenue but "the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels" in five days, Xinhua news agency reported.

The airline cancelled over 5,000 flights amid the outage through July 25, which was sparked by a botched CrowdStrike software update and took thousands of Microsoft systems around the world offline.

The meltdown was rare for Delta. Its slower recovery from the outage than other airlines prompted an investigation by the US Department of Transportation.

After the outage, Delta's platforms that match flight crews to planes couldn't keep up with the changes, leading to further disruptions, according to the company.

Bastian told CNBC on Wednesday that the carrier would seek damages from the disruptions, adding, "We have no choice."

CrowdStrike has so far made no offers to help Delta financially, Bastian said.

A CrowdStrike spokesperson said in a statement that the company had "no knowledge of a lawsuit and had no further comment." Microsoft didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, CNBC reported.

"We have to protect our shareholders. We have to protect our customers, our employees, for the damage, not just to the cost of it, but to the brand, the reputational damage," Bastian was quoted as saying in the report.