Delta CEO: ‘When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?’
The Verge
|
Contributed by: Drex DeFord
Summary
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian revealed in a CNBC interview that a recent IT outage caused by a CrowdStrike update resulted in costs of half a billion dollars for Delta over five days, leading to over 5,000 flight cancellations and lingering error screens at airports. Bastian criticized Microsoft's platform as fragile, highlighting the need for big tech companies to balance innovation with current stability. Delta's IT department received only free consulting advice as compensation, while the company has since hired attorney David Boies to pursue damages. Moreover, CrowdStrike shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit, alleging false claims about the validation and testing of the faulty update. The incident underscores differences in how Microsoft and Apple handle third-party access to their operating systems and has led to calls for more rigorous testing protocols from vendors with critical access to Delta's systems.
