At the end of July, CrowdStrike pushed an update that brought down computer systems all over the world. Airlines were badly affected, though none as significantly as Delta which displaced hundreds of thousands of passengers and cancelled a substantial portion of its flights for days on end.
Delta vs. United in Minneapolis. And I picked the wrong team, my friends. pic.twitter.com/1FibWqXiMC
— Brian Brenberg (@BrianBrenberg) July 22, 2024
For the last decade I’ve flown first class @Delta for every single flight.
Never again.
Y’all just lost a customer for life.
Horrible customer service. Cancelled flights with no reimbursement. No answers from anyone.
RIP, @Delta, you’re dead to me. pic.twitter.com/ln7AJAr0j1
— Jason Helmes (@anymanfitness) July 22, 2024
Delta had slimmed its IT operation, and after its systems collapsed it lost track of crew. While other airlines recovered, their systems continued to lag. While Delta is, in normal times, somewhat more reliable than most U.S. operations they have a history of taking longer to recover from meltdowns than other carriers.
- Throughout the ordeal and since, they’ve continued to deny any responsibility and blame CrowdStrike completely. But the incident tarnished Delta’s premium image.
- Rather than taking responsibility, this deflection has shown an arrogance that’s a real turnoff to many loyal customers. And it continues.
After Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called Ed Bastian, ‘reminding him about his airline’s responsibilities to passengers’, the airline became more reasonable covering costs for stranded passengers. Delta had previously refused to pay for tickets that travelers were stuck buying on other airlines.
However, CEO Bastian has put Buttigieg on blast over this, claiming he was just posturing for self-serving political reasons.
“I got pretty annoyed with our Secretary of Transportation,” Bastian said, citing the department’s decision to deem disruptions stemming from the outage as “controllable.” That put airlines like Delta on the hook for covering additional costs like meals and transportation, among others.
“All that was just insane … Technology providers knock us out and then it’s our fault?” Bastian said. “You’ve got politicians running some of the cabinet offices there, and they’re doing it to make inroads and get name recognition.”
“You can imagine the conversation I had with him privately,” Bastian added to laughs.
It’s highly unusual for an airline CEO to publicly criticize its regulator. But Delta has a history of tremendous lobbying success, nearly blocking Mideast airlines from flying to the U.S. despite signed treaties (this effort culminated in an Oval Office meeting that Bastian failed to show up to), and as the airline’s CEO noted at the event where he called out Buttigieg, they’ve managed to retain their stranglehold on U.S. – Mexico flying via joint venture with Aeromexico despite DOT noticing that they intended to cancel it. As I’ve written in the past, in any 50-50 deal Delta takes the hyphen.
Misunderstanding the difference between fault and responsibility should be auto-disqualification for anybody in a position of leadership.
Of course Bastian knows the difference but some crappy PR/comms team decided it’s ok to gaslight the public. Gosh, PR/comms teams are the worst. We all know who majors in comms in college — drunks and stoners with no intellect. They think the whole world is as stupid as themselves, so they think their gaslighting works in crafted PR statements.
As a preemptive matter:
I speak for everybody when I say NO COMMENTS FROM TIM DUNN PLEASE
Tim, I and the readership of this website are begging you not to clog up these comments with your fustian
I like delta and I don’t like pete whatever guy.
“We fail to recover for days unlike every other carrier because of our own sh**y processes and tech, and you want to hold us accountable as a regulator instead of being the feckless agency you’ve been under most of your docile predecessors? How dare you, don’t you know who I am?” – Ed Bastian, Delta.
There we go, fixed the quote for him.
Yes, Delta, it is. You are absolute garbage. Not to say buttplug isn’t, but you have the IT department that a 2 year old Cocker Spaniel could run better. Every single one of your executives should be in jail right now.
When a service provider fails, the company that contracted with the service provider may not be at fault but they are responsible since the company had complete control over whether to contract with the service provider.
The idea that anyone would side with Ed Bastian in this scenario is absolutely absurd. Delta’s operational decisions and IT infrastructure decisions were directly repsonsible for stranding countless passengers when other airlines responded, this was no act of God, whatever Ed may think of himself.
TIMMY!
Don’t like either of them. I suggest that a foremost expert in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel propose a cage-fight match between the two, with money raised to go to charity. I would make a serious donation to see that one…
typical government bureaucratic liberal that has to remind everybody of their responsibilities because they don’t have any accomplishments outside of politics
@SFO/EWR
I can be SAN/EWR traveling Monday. I happen to like Delta and Tim Dunn so you don’t speak for me and the others who feel the same. BTY, SFO now sucks thanks to the politics of you and your lib perps.
SDRon, congrats for defending clear incompetence on the part of Delta.
Hard to decide which of the two is more loathsome.
Someone famous once said, “Thou doth protest too much [, Ed].” I think Ed knows that his IT people could have done a better job on the software that powers the workstations in front of thousands of agents to protect them from software glitches that “brick” their systems. That is, glitches that require a human to manually reset every workstation. Maybe Pete can do some CS101 training at DL.
I thought educated people read these blogs. Reading the comments here destroyed that misconception.
Super childish behavior from DL. I like them and think that pete is an imbecile, but DL is so in the wrong here with their reaction to their IT meltdown. No one cares that it is not your fault, it is still your responsibility to get passengers to their destination. If they had to find their own way because you hung them out to dry, you owe them compensation. I can’t believe that DL is trying to get away with this while SQ is getting sued for quickly responding to and compensating passengers, no questions asked, for something that is also not their fault!
When are we going to start requiring managing information systems training in Business school?
The airline industry has gone from being at the forefront of technology adoption to the one of the largest users of legacy systems.
The a hole airlines need to be chopped up and sent back to the drawing board.
Oh and F the employees too. If I have to listen to another 60k Betty or 500k Tom whine about pushing another bottom or pour a G&T. I’m going to vomit on them, well maybe near them. I don’t want to go to jail, not yet anyway.
I think I’d rather hear from Mr Dunn than Mr “your people” SFO/EWR.
Mayor Pete is so mad he’s going to have his husband beat up Ed Bastian.
thanks, Jake.
How quickly we forget that UA’s Scott Kirby blasted the FAA and Mayor Pete last year after UA’s meltdown that started w overscheduling at EWR. So, no, other airline CEOs do and have blasted regulators. Recently.
Pete is trying to cling to his job. There is no assurance that he will keep his job even if Kamala gets in.
DL blew the CRWD issue out of proportion but, as I have noted, it will have minimal impact on DL’s finances and they are still in 1st place for on-time on a YTD basis among mainland airlines. btw, the end of the year, DL will probably be back on top.
Great to see a public officially standing up for taxpayers and not being a sheeple of the industry. It’s obvious common sensitive Delta deploys a technology, they are responsible for it, duh!
Well there is plenty of regulatory capture to go around, it’s good to see the this administration does not allow it.
I’m genuinely curious: why is there always so much hate for Pete Buttigieg in this comments section? From my (perhaps ignorant) perspective, he’s made lots of customer friendly advances at DOT?
@joe. Pete has more accomplishments than you will ever have. Out side of politics he can speak more languages fluently then you can speak English. Know you person before you call him a trumpeter
Just because Delta wants to &@&$)) their customers does not give them the right to not follow the law. We are not in Russia
I say put these 2 guys into a boxing ring and let them go at and who ever is left standing at the end of this fight would be the winner
@xenawp people confuse their tribal group think with reason.
@SFO/EWR:
“Misunderstanding the difference between fault and responsibility should be auto-disqualification for anybody in a position of leadership.”
Absolutely right and well-said.
“We all know who majors in comms in college — drunks and stoners with no intellect.”
And let’s not forget the DEI majors for whom it’s the only hope left for being given a degree.
The reason I love Let and Let Fly is Tim Dunn isn’t allowed…..or he’s too scared to show up.
BTW Pete and Ed are both a**holes who shouldn’t be in their positions.
XenaWP, just a bunch of bigots and conservative keyboard warriors with misplaced anger over unhealed trauma. Don’t pay them any mind.
The real Tim Dunn is welcome at LALF is but he found out that site is not one I participate in by choice so he cracked down on the frauds. Great on him
I prefer to judge people by their words and actions, not by how they’re shaded by partisan talking points. Pete had the courage to state the obvious – Delta can’t shirk responsibility here – with the effect of providing a decent legal basis for those who bore the brunt of Delta’s failure.
Delta in words told me at the time that itineraries originating in Europe did not fall under EU 261/2004, and they had no duty of care. They later sent an email announcing that I’d be sent a $125 voucher within five days, which, of course, they never did.
This clown continues to pretend that his company has no duty towards its passengers.
Fault? The folks posting here are right that Pete spoke of responsibility, not fault. But, as much as I think Crowdstrike was idiotic in their processes, that the company should be liquidated and the C-Suite held personally accountable, the fact that this lasted more than a day is entirely and demonstrably Delta’s fault.
As well they should. CloudStrike doesn’t need to just be sued, but criminally prosecuted for computer sabotage.
Ed is insufferable arrogant and pompous. Any conversation he is involved in is by definition. Painful
What got Delta into this problem was their arrogance and this just further backs it up…
I guess at Delta the buck stops at somewhere else?
I find it hilarious that Delta, once again, reveals to us EXACTLY what they are– arrogant, smug “Oh, it’s never our fault”. And we STILL have readers (all of whom presumably carry the right color of lame AMEX card) coming forward to sing the praises of the Adzholes-of-Atlanta.
You can’t strand 700,000 passengers, literally thousands of UMs, and somehow “Social Media Manipulate” yourself out of the reality. DL is terrible in IROPS. Always have been, always will be. For reasons that ought to be clear by now.
Just a reminder that United had a meltdown of its own causing in 2023 and Southwest did 6 months before that. AA is the only big 4 airline that hasn’t had a massive meltdown and yet their operational performance is the worst of the bunch.
These comments drip with the kind of arrogance that has plagued the airline industry’s c-suite for decades. It’s no wonder their operations halt to a standstill anytime there’s an IT glitch. There’s zero accountability or sense of responsibility on their part to get their passengers to their destination safely no matter what.
@Tomri
“Out side of politics he can speak more languages fluently then you can speak English. Know you person before you call him a trumpeter.”
There are so many spelling errors in there, you might not want to hold yourself up as determining.who is smart and who is not
1. Outside, not out side
2. then you, than you
3. Know you person, know your person
@Denver Refugee regardless, the fact is nobody else in the industry sucked as bad as dealing with the situation as DL and its prima donna CEO.
idiot.
and yet Southwest’s investor presentation from just a week ago showed that Delta was #2 in the US in completion factor behind WN year to date through mid-Sept and #1 in on-time performance and #2 behind UA for extreme delays.
UA is at the bottom of the list for completion rate, behind DL for on-time with AA at #5 – only ahead of NK, B6 and F9 – and UA and AA are at #4 and 5 for extreme delays behind AS, DL and WN.
according to DOT data, UA had more than half the RATE of delays of DL because of CrowdStrike and yet AA has been far worse in every category than every other carrier.
As we get further from the summer, DL’s performance relative to the industry will only improve.
DL outperforms every other airline on a regular basis. CRWD was a huge negative for other airlines but every other airline has other factors on a regular basis that impact their operations worse than DL.
Mayor Pete Buttahole has as much knowledge of transportation as I do about brain surgery. He is a puppet of the establishment. Like “Karmella” (oh…sorry Mrs. Soprano) he is way over his head. The Crowdstrike issue affected many companies, not just Delta, United, Southwest, etc. What the whole issues boils down to is that every company involved with this debacle sees the “single point of failure” and will design their software to have redundant ways to get back on track I’ll bet that every CEO of an affected company is working to eliminate Crowdstrike’s integration. Delta just happened to have more single points of failure than others. What I would like to see is the old “Rule 240” brought back. Rule 240 does not cover “force majeure” events, though.
@Tim: Did UA and WN try and pretend their meltdowns were not their fault and compensate their passengers like it was bad weather?
As for Pete, if Trump was still in office, whoever woukd have been running DOT would have let Delta get away with it, so good on him for forcing Delta to take better care of passengers.
@ Gary — Ed Bastian really is full of it and displayed zero leadership during this crisis. He really needs to just retire. He and Hauenstein.
@miguel Your “joke” about Pete’s family was offensive. I’m just sayin’.
Yes, actually. Airlines are responsible for their suppliers including technology providers. They can choose robust ones or lowest cost ones. They can have a robust IT staff and testing processes, or crappy ones. Just because you outsource something instead of doing it in-house does not absolve you of responsibility. If they are not responsible for their decisions, who is?
Just this alone makes me not want to file Delta.
Give me a break. The “It wasn’t our fault” excuse holds no water here. After the IT issue happened it was Delta’s responsibility to take care of their thousands of stranded passengers and they failed miserably. Secretary Pete was more than right in calling them out. The arrogance of corporate CEO’s is astounding.
1) Ed Bastian is a homophobe, as shown by this.
1a) But he doesn’t mind putting his nose in Guillaume Faury’s cul every chance he gets.
2) Delta Airlines supports Mango Mussolini and Hillbilly Bear.
3) Delta fanboys support Mango Mussolini and Hillbilly Bear.
4) Delta fanboys that post here should be identified and shamed for being supporters of Mango Mussolini and Hillbilly Bear, as well as being homophobes by association.
5) Vote Harris/Walz. Or Delta fanboys will take over the US.
And remember, both Microsoft and Crowdstrike say they immediately offered tech support to Delta and were blown off (unlike other companies to whom they made the offer).
I hope the lawsuit goes forward — the fact finding on both sides should be fascinating. Can you imagine the stupid statements senior execs and their underlings were making in emails that day?
All of the “you should know the supplier you are dealing w/” arguments is laughable in light of the issues that United and Southwest esp. are having w/ Boeing but just about every other Boeing customer. Add in the GTF problems from Pratt and Whitney and the “you should know your supplier” argument seems to take everyone hostage.
Boeing is, after all, just a supplier right?
Delta fared far better compared to its poor supplier decision with CrowdStrike than any other airline has with its aircraft and engine suppliers – and DL IS affected by Boeing and Pratt.
and DL is still right back at the top tier of the industry and will recover its first place position for many if not most metrics by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, airplane issues will go on for years.
It is, after all, just a supplier issue.
@ Win Whitmire
I’m not gay but it’s obvious you’re a homophob. Pete obviously as trans secretary took responsibility in going after CEO Ed to do the right thing, while you’re waiting for chump to stick his dick in your stupid ass!
@ Tim
“Just a reminder that United had a meltdown of its own causing in 2023 and Southwest did 6 months before that. AA is the only big 4 airline that hasn’t had a massive meltdown and yet their operational performance is the worst of the bunch.”
You remind me of the Labour party apologist here in Malta. Every time his party (which is in power) gets caught up in a scandal, corruption, or just a plain pack of lies, he always reminds everyone that the opposition party did the same thing ten to twelve years ago. Nowhere in his diatribe did he ever take responsibility for that which just happened.
I spent 40 years in sales and marketing. In that time there were several occasions when my company failed to deliver on a promise. The first thing I said to my customer (and my sales teams did as well) I am sorry for not meeting the agreed upon expectations. First, let me resolve the issue. Then when it is resolved, I will sit down with you to discuss compensation. Tim, that is the only way responsible adults should act.