Delta Sued By Passengers Over Response To CrowdStrike Outage: Attorney

ATLANTA, GA — Delta Air Lines passengers dissatisfied with the company's response to the international CrowdStrike outage are suing the airlines in a class action lawsuit, alleging Delta canceled nearly 70 percent of its flights and refused refunds.

News of the lawsuit was shared Monday by Sauder Schelkopf Attorneys at Law, which said it is representing the passengers. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia.

The widespread outage at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike had far ranging impacts across the world on July 19, which hit airlines, banks and other offices. A software update was believed to be responsible for the mass disruption, according to past national reports.

The attorneys for the passengers claimed Delta canceled at least 1,250 flights on July 22, three days after the outage.

CNBC reported Delta canceled more than 5,000 flights through July 25.

"These cancellations accounted for nearly 70% of all flights within, to, or from the United States that had been canceled on Monday. No other US airline had canceled one-tenth as many flights,” Sauder Schelkopf said in a news release.

The attorneys maintained Delta took longer than its competitors to resume normal operations. They claimed most other airlines quickly recovered from the outage by the weekend while they alleged Delta did not.

Delta was accused of refusing automatic refunds to passengers impacted by flight cancellations. Instead, the attorneys said, Delta offered "partial reimbursements to passengers on a waiver releasing Delta of all legal claims passengers have against Delta."

“While nearly every other airline recovered quickly from the July 19th ‘tech outage,’ Delta’s passengers remained stranded, waiting in lines for days trying to get to their destinations," Joe Sauder of Sauder Schelkopf said in a news release. "When our clients sought refunds, Delta again failed to deliver. We look forward to litigating the case on their behalf."

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC in a past interview the outage would cost the airlines $500 million. Bastian said millions account for lost revenue and “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels” during five days, the news outlet reported.

Delta has not released a public comment regarding the lawsuit.