ATLANTA – Microsoft is joining cybersecurity software firm CrowdStrike in fighting back against Delta Air Lines, which blames the companies for causing several thousand canceled flights following a technology outage last month.
A lawyer for Microsoft said Tuesday that Delta’s key IT system is probably serviced by other technology companies, not Microsoft Windows.
“Your letter and Delta’s public comments are incomplete, false, misleading, and damaging to Microsoft and its reputation,” Microsoft lawyer Mark Cheffo said in a letter to Delta attorney David Boies.
Cheffo said Microsoft was trying to determine “why other airlines were able to fully restore business operations so much faster than Delta.”
The comments represent an escalating fight between the tech companies and the Atlanta-based airline.
Last week, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said that disruption to its operations cost the airline “half a billion dollars in five days.”
Part of that amount included “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation …