Microsoft punches back at Delta Air Lines and its legal threats

SatNad himself offered CrowdStrike recovery help, Redmond says, before suggesting airline's IT is in a mess

Microsoft has labelled Delta Air Lines' accusations it's partly to blame for the outages caused by CrowdStrike’s buggy software "false" and "misleading" – and insulted the state of the carrier’s IT infrastructure.

Delta, which has hired a law firm and threatened to sue Microsoft and CrowdStrike over the July 19 meltdown, previously claimed recovering from the BSOD blitz cost it $500 million.

In an August 6 letter to lawyer David Boies who acts for Delta (and it's safe to say is no friend of Microsoft's), Redmond's legal rep Mark Cheffo asserted that Microsoft executives repeatedly offered to help the airline every day between July 19 and July 24.

All of those offers – including an email from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Delta CEO Ed Bastian – were ignored, according to Cheffo.

"Microsoft continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the CrowdStrike incident to understand why other airlines were able to fully restore business operations so much faster than Delta, including American Airlines and United Airlines," he wrote [PDF].

And then the real kicker: "Our preliminary review suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently has not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or for its pilots and flight attendants." Oof.

Delta, in response to The Register's inquiry, didn't dispute Microsoft's we-tried-to-help claims. But it did push back on the claim its IT is shoddy.

"Delta has a long track record of investing in safe, reliable and elevated service for our customers and employees," a spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. "Since 2016, Delta has invested billions of dollars in IT capital expenditures, in addition to the billions spent annually in IT operating costs."

Microsoft's letter follows a similar missive CrowdStrike sent to Boies yesterday that also claimed the embattled airline refused its offer of on-site help, and accused Delta of making poor IT decisions that ultimately led to its delayed recovery. ®