Bastian told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday that the carrier would seek damages from the disruptions, adding, "We have no choice."
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the massive IT outage earlier this month that stranded thousands of customers will cost it $500 million.
The airline canceled more than 4,000 flights in the wake of the outage, which was caused by a botched CrowdStrike software update and took thousands of Microsoft systems around the world offline.
Bastian, speaking from Paris, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that the carrier would seek damages from the disruptions, adding, “We have no choice.”
Bastian said the figure includes not just lost revenue but “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels” over a period of five days. The amount is roughly in line with analysts’ estimates. Delta didn’t disclose how many customers were affected or how many canceled their flights.
It's important to note that the DOT recently clarified a rule that reinforced that if an airline cancels a flight, they have to compensate the customer. So that's the real reason why Delta had to spend so much, they couldn't ignore their customers and had to pay out for their inconvenience.
So think about how much worse it might have been for fliers if a more industry-friendly Transportation Secretary were in charge. The airlines might not have had to pay out nearly as much to stranded customers, and we'd be hearing about how stranded fliers got nothing at all.
Our best airline just got bought by pretty much a broadcom, mechs are striking because, well, Canada isn't an at-will state near Jersey, everyone's looking to bail because now they have to be the dicks to customers they didn't like being at the other (national) airline. The whole enshittification enchilada.
Late flights? Check. Missed connections? Check. Luggage? Laughable. And extra. Compensation? "No hablo canadiensis".
We need that hard rule where they fuck up and they gotta make it rain too.
Like, is it so hard to keep a working but dark airplane in a parking spot for when that flight's delayed because the lav check valve is jammed? This seems to be basic capacity planning and business continuity. They need to get a clue under their skin or else they get the hose again.