In the latest salvo in the ongoing public relations war, Microsoft has joined CrowdStrike to push back against recent criticism from Delta Air Lines, claiming that the airline refused technical support during consequences of power outage This eventually forced the airline to cancel more than 5,000 flights.
The tech company accused Delta of promoting an inaccurate narrative surrounding the cause of the nearly weeklong outage in late July, in a letter sent Tuesday by a lawyer representing Microsoft, Mark Cheffo of Dechert LLP. The letter, a copy of which was viewed by TPG, was sent to David Boies, a prominent attorney Delta said it has hired to pursue damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft.
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“Delta’s public comments were incomplete, false, misleading, and damaging to Microsoft and its reputation,” the letter said. “The truth is very different from the false picture that you and Delta attempt to paint.”
Mob attack sent a similar notice to Delta on Sunday.
Last week, Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC that the July 19 outage and its aftermath cost the airline $500 million and that the airline would seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. CrowdStrike provides security software for Microsoft’s Windows operating system, which runs much of Delta’s technology. A faulty CrowdStrike software update crashed thousands of Microsoft networks and systems after it was accidentally deployed.
In a letter Tuesday, through its attorney, Microsoft said the Washington-based company offered to provide technical support to Delta every day starting July 19, when the outages began, until July 23, when Delta began to better control its operations, but Delta declined all offers.
The letter cites a specific July 22 message in which a Delta employee told a Microsoft employee the situation was “perfectly fine” and declined assistance, and says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emailed Bastian on July 24 offering help but received no response.
Related: How to Get Your Money Back If You’re Stuck on Delta Air Lines
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Microsoft also stated that the systems causing the prolonged Delta outage were not Windows-dependent.
“In fact, it is clear that Delta may have declined Microsoft’s help because the IT system it had the most difficulty restoring — its crew tracking and scheduling system — was maintained by other technology vendors, such as IBM, because it ran on those vendors’ systems rather than Microsoft Windows or Azure,” the letter said.
Instead, Microsoft accused Delta of failing to ensure its systems were adequately designed to handle disruptions.
“Our preliminary review shows that Delta, unlike its competitors, has clearly not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or its pilots and flight attendants,” the letter said.
While many airlines across the United States and globally have forced to stop completely during a power outage — including American Airlines and United Airlines — were able to get their operations back to normal within a day or two after the fix was deployed, with the exception of a few remaining delays and cancellations.
However, Delta struggled for almost a weekultimately canceled more than 5,000 major flights and hundreds of regional flights from July 19 to July 25, according to data provided by FlightAware.
The transportation are investigating Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last month that extended disruptions were normal.
In public statements following the initial outage, Delta cited issues with its crew scheduling software, while internal memos sent to employees, seen by TPG, repeatedly offered incentives for off-duty crew members to take flights as the airline struggled to get displaced crew back on board.
Bastian later told CNBC that the airline relies more heavily on CrowdStrike and Microsoft than other airlines, using products from those companies for more of its systems.
“If you want access, priority access, to the Delta ecosystem on the technology side, you have to test this stuff,” Bastian told CNBC last week, referring to the faulty CrowdStrike software update that caused the outage. “You can’t come into a critical operation 24/7 and tell us we have a bug. It doesn’t work.”
In Tuesday’s letter, Microsoft said it would “vigorously” defend itself against any claims from Delta and asked the company to preserve related documents. In a sign of the ongoing public relations battle, the tech company specifically called on Delta to preserve all “communications with third-party media and/or public relations advisors related to the CrowdStrike incident and Delta’s outage, and related to Delta’s public communications strategy and/or response. Such documents include both internal and external communications with third parties.”
Delta was unable to immediately respond. This story will be updated if Delta responds.
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