Travellers who had their flights delayed or cancelled on Monday added to CrowdStrike’s legal woes stemming from the major worldwide computer outage that occurred last month.
Three flyers filed a proposed class action in federal court in Austin, Texas, blaming CrowdStrike for not testing and installing its software properly, which resulted in the global outage that affected banks, hospitals, and emergency lines.
The plaintiffs claimed that as travellers rushed to reach their destinations, many of them spent hundreds of dollars on food, hotel, and other forms of transportation; others suffered health issues or lost work as a result of having to sleep on the airport floor.
As a result of technology-related flight groundings for Southwest Airlines and other airlines in 2023, they claimed CrowdStrike should reimburse compensatory and punitive damages to any passenger whose flight was interfered with, making the disruption “entirely foreseeable.”
“We believe this case lacks merit and we will vigorously defend the company,” CrowdStrike stated in a statement. It made the same declaration in response to a lawsuit brought by shareholders on July 31, following a roughly one-third decline in the company’s stock price.
Over 8 million PCs failed as a result of a faulty software update, which caused the outage.
Following the cancellation of over 6,000 flights at an estimated cost of $500 million, Delta Air Lines has indicated that it may file a lawsuit against Austin-based CrowdStrike.
On Sunday, CrowdStrike said that Delta’s issues were not due to its gross negligence or wrongdoing, and that the Atlanta-based carrier had declined their offer of assistance.
The US Department of Transportation is investigating Delta for taking longer than its competitors to recover from the outage.
The case on Monday is del Rio et al. v. CrowdStrike Inc., U.S.