Delta CEO Criticizes Microsoft as ‘Most Fragile’ Platform Following Global Outage

Ed Bastian’s remarks were made in response to inquiries regarding the airline’s continued partnership with Microsoft.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian labeled Microsoft as “the most fragile” platform following a significant IT outage last month that led to a global disruption. The five-day outage is estimated to have cost Delta around $500 million in lost revenue, compensation, and hotel expenses. Bastian’s comments came during a CNBC interview in which he was asked about Delta’s ongoing relationship with Microsoft. He criticized Microsoft’s reliability, questioning, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?” Bastian also highlighted the responsibility of major tech companies, which benefit from high valuations partly due to generative AI hype, to ensure the stability of their current systems. “They are building the future, and they have to make sure they fortify the current,” he added.

The outage, which impacted Delta’s website, mobile app, and check-in systems, led to thousands of refund and reimbursement requests. Although Delta did not disclose the exact number, a spokesperson confirmed it was in the “thousands.” The disruption, caused by a faulty CrowdStrike software update, took thousands of Microsoft systems offline and required the manual reset of 40,000 servers. Additionally, Delta’s crew scheduling platforms were affected, causing further operational disruptions, according to CEO Ed Bastian.

“If you’re going to have priority access to the Delta technology ecosystem, you must thoroughly test your systems. You can’t come into a mission-critical, 24/7 operation and then inform us that there is a bug,” Mr. Bastian said.

CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm behind the problematic update, has not yet provided any financial assistance to Delta. Instead, the company has offered only free consulting advice on managing the fallout.

In response to the incident, Delta has enlisted attorney David Boies to pursue compensation from both CrowdStrike and Microsoft. Mr. Bastian emphasized the need to protect “shareholders, customers, and employees” from the financial and “reputational damage” caused by the outage.