The timing almost couldn't have been worse. With the Global Business Travel Association's annual convention in July ready to begin in Delta Air Lines' headquarters city, bringing hundreds of business travel buyers to its own backyard, a failed update by cybersecurity tech firm CrowdStrike knocked out computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system. That failure led to a cascade of errors and failures that damaged operations and commerce in many industries worldwide but perhaps none as visibly as airlines, and among them, none as visibly as Delta.
The failure crippled the airline's operations at the end of July, as it canceled thousands of its flights and delayed thousands more. Many of the GBTA attendees—those who made it to Atlanta—spun tales of woe, detailing hours-long delays and picking through sleeping travelers stranded at Hartsfield International Airport with piles of luggage. Delta president Glen Hauenstein apologized to attendees in a GBTA general session as the carrier struggled to find its footing.
Delta wasn't the only airline that suffered from the failed CrowdStrike update, as United Airlines and American Airlines canceled flights too, but the effect on Delta was the most severe and longest-lasting. Delta since has sued CrowdStrike, claiming more than $500 million in losses, and the cybersecurity form has countersued in an effort to limit its liability.
Weep not for Delta's reputation: the carrier, long a standard-bearer in customer satisfaction surveys, in 2024 won its 14th consecutive title as the top-rated carrier in BTN's Annual Airline Survey. It also was named by subscribers of BTN portfolio mate The Beat not only as their most admired airline but also their overall supplier of the year—distinctions it has received for 13 straight years. Voting in both surveys occurred after the July meltdown.
Naming CrowdStrike CEO and founder George Kurtz to this list is an exercise in determining where the buck stops: the CrowdStrike update was the original sin of the meltdown, and Kurtz is the top executive at CrowdStrike. But the influence on the business travel industry is perhaps more abstract.
The Delta meltdown wasn't the only reminder in recent years of the potential tenuousness of the underpinnings of the infrastructure of business travel, but perhaps it's the most stark. The constant technological advancement and interconnectivity has made the airline industry in particular a technical marvel that enables constant worldwide business travel at finely calibrated capacity and frequency, but it also illustrates the extent to which the industry is at the mercy of the tech. That one failed tech update wreaked such widespread havoc is alarming and shows the need for effective backup plans, contingencies and the imagination to see where the soft spots that could lead to the next meltdown are.