Delta Air Lines faced a colossal $500 million hit due to a major IT outage earlier this month that stranded thousands of passengers. The outage, caused by a flawed software update from CrowdStrike, led to the cancellation of over 4,000 flights and massive daily costs for compensation and hotels. The airline had to manually reset 40,000 servers and now plans to seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft. Delta, known for its top-notch service, is also dealing with a reputation blow and a federal investigation.

The significant IT breakdown that left thousands of customers stranded earlier this month would cost Delta Air Lines $500 million, CEO Ed Bastian announced on Wednesday.

According to Bastian, the sum encompasses not just the money that was lost but also "the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels" for five days. The sum is approximately by analysts' projections. Although a representative for Delta claimed the number of refund and compensation re...