Government officials are investigating Delta Air Lines after the recent CrowdStrike IT outage caused massive disruptions in the airline industry and others all over the world.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is probing the airline after Delta canceled and delayed flights, Spectrum News 1 reported on Tuesday.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, “@USDOT has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.”
“All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld,” he added:
.@USDOT has opened an investigation into Delta Air Lines to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers during continued widespread disruptions.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) July 23, 2024
All airline passengers have the right to be treated fairly, and I will make sure that right is upheld.
King 5 reported Tuesday that, since Friday, Delta had canceled more than 4,000 flights. “Other airlines have managed to rebound since the outage which has intensified the scrutiny on Delta,” the outlet noted.
The report also said Buttigieg’s agency got hundreds of complaints due to the issue. “He expects Delta to refund and reimburse customers, some of whom are spending thousands of dollars on rebooking, hotel, rental cars, and food. If that isn’t happening, he encouraged travelers to file a complaint,” the article continued.
The widespread IT outage happened on Friday after a failed software update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, Breitbart News reported. The issue caused disruptions for businesses and services using Microsoft software, affecting banks, airports, television stations, hotels, and other industries.
The outlet noted:
Cybersecurity officials have stated that the issues are not believed to be the result of a malicious cyberattack. Instead, the problems stem from a misconfigured or corrupted update pushed out by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike to its customers. The incident appears to only be affecting devices running the Windows operating system.
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson told Spectrum News 1 the company is fully cooperating with the investigation.
“We remain entirely focused on restoring our operation after cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike’s faulty Windows update rendered IT systems across the globe inoperable,” the spokesperson stated.
