Passengers have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Delta Air Lines alleging that the impact of the carrier’s flight cancellations after the CrowdStrike outage was “disastrous” and that Delta refused or ignored requests for refunds.
The suit, filed by law firms Sauder Schelkopf and Webb, Klase & Lemond on behalf of Delta passengers, also says the airline refused to provide all affected passengers with meal, hotel, and ground transportation vouchers, “despite its previous commitments,” forcing passengers to spend money on unexpected expenses.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, seeks refunds for those affected. It also seeks punitive damages and other damages and relief, as well as attorneys’ fees.
Delta declined to comment on pending litigation.
The airline in a July 26 update told customers whose travel was disrupted due to a canceled or significantly delayed flight could cancel their flights via the Delta website or app and receive an automatic refund for the un-flown portion of the trip. It also directed customers to submit expenses through its website for “fast processing” for reimbursement.
As Delta was recovering from the outage, CEO Ed Bastian said in a message to customers who were affected: “I want to thank you for your patience and apologize again for the disruption to your travel.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating Delta and its treatment of passengers during the operational meltdown.
“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,” said Sauder Schelkopf attorney Joe Sauder in a written statement. “When our clients sought refunds, Delta again failed to deliver. We look forward to litigating the case on their behalf.”
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity software firm that had the initial outage, has also been hit with a class-action lawsuit filed by airline passengers whose flights were delayed or canceled as a result of the outage.
The plaintiffs in the case against Delta include passenger Arben Bajra, who had two round-trip tickets for a July 20 trip to Amsterdam from Denver connecting through New York, and due to the flight disruptions was rebooked for July 22. That flight was also canceled, Bajra was told that “there were no available flights for several days,” the complaint says. He ultimately went through multiple flight cancellations and disruptions and incurred out-of-pocket expenses of about $1,975, and had not yet gotten a refund or reimbursement, according to the suit.
Another plaintiff is Florida resident John Brennan, who missed an anniversary cruise from Seattle due to the Delta flight cancellations and ended up stranded in Atlanta with his wife without their luggage, the complaint says. They ended up buying tickets to take a Greyhound bus back home to Tampa.
“The impact on Delta passengers was disastrous,” according to the filing. “Delta’s failure to recover from the CrowdStrike outage left passengers stranded in airports across the country for days, in many cases thousands of miles from home.”
The suit also alleges that when Delta told passengers their flights were canceled, it offered e-credits as compensation “but made no mention to passengers of their rights under federal law to receive cash refunds.”
“Even when agreeing to reimbursements, Delta forced passengers to release their legal claims against the airline,” the complaint says.
The plaintiffs also include passengers Asher Einhorn and Melanie Susman, whose Delta flights were canceled according to the complaint.
The suit alleges multiple counts of breach of contract — for failure to refund fare, failure to cover additional amenities and breach of implied or oral contracts when Delta promised refunds. It also alleges Delta committed other violations, including fraud for misrepresentations or omissions concerning refunds for canceled flights and reimbursements, unjust enrichment and violations of state laws.
The lawsuit says there could be tens of thousands of people in the class of people affected — but the number would ultimately be determined based on Delta’s records.
According to Bastian, the fallout from the outage cost Delta half a billion dollars.
Last week, the airline said it has hired law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to pursue potential claims against Microsoft and CrowdStrike.
Attorneys for Microsoft and CrowdStrike fired back at the airline this week. CrowdStrike raises questions about the resilience of Delta’s IT infrastructure and decisions on system upgrades, Microsoft accused Delta of not modernizing its technology before the outage.
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