Delta's CrowdStrike tiff, a Boeing mystery persists, and investor updates from Frontier and Ryanair: airlines news roundup
Delta Air Lines continues to go back and forth with CrowdStrike ahead of a possible lawsuit over its $500 million technology outage. Boeing came in for some grilling from the National Transportation Safety Board. Plus, Frontier Airlines just came up with a neat turn of phrase to describe industry-wide demand softness.
Take a moment to catch up on what’s been happening in the world of airlines.
Delta gives employees free flights for dealing with the CrowdStrike outage
After days of dealing with logistical chaos and upset customers, Delta Air Lines is rewarding its employees for how they handled the CrowdStrike technology outage that disrupted the carrier’s operations for the better part of a week. The Atlanta Constitution-Journal reports that Delta is giving each employee two free plane tickets good for anywhere the company flies. — Melvin Backman
CrowdStrike says Delta’s CrowdStrike meltdown is kinda Delta’s fault, too
CrowdStrike is tired of taking all the blame for Delta Air Lines CrowdStrike meltdown. In a letter publicized by a reporter from The Points Guy, the cybersecurity firm’s legal team pushed back on some of the umbrage from the carrier regarding the internet security outage that grounded its flights for days late last month and cost it hundreds of millions of dollars. — Melvin Backman
Tropical Storm Debby cancels hundreds of Florida flights
Tropical Storm Debby is leading to significant disruptions at Florida airports as it makes landfall. The plane-tracking website FlightAware reports that on Monday three airports in the state are among the ones with the highest number of cancelled flights as the storm makes its way across the northern part of the state. — Melvin Backman
American Airlines says summer is over
American Airlines is calling it early. — Melvin Backman
Boeing says 737 Max 9 door plugs will now be harder to lose
After a door plug blew out on a Boeing 737 Max 9 this January, the National Transportation Safety Board sprung into action trying to get to the bottom of what happened and why. — Melvin Backman
Another airline is saying the Olympics are bad for business
Air Canada reported earnings Wednesday. In the second quarter, the company wrung C$466 million ($339 million USD) in profits from C$5.5 billion (around $4 billion USD) in revenue. Both of those numbers are weaker than they were a year ago. — Melvin Backman
Boeing still doesn’t know who’s responsible for the 737 Max door blowout
The biggest mystery going into the National Transportation Safety Board hearings about Boeing’s 737 Max 9 door plug blowout incident remains a mystery. An initial NTSB investigation into what caused the coverup for an unused emergency door to disappear into the sky mid-flight this January found that four key bolts that were supposed to keep it in place were not bolted on. — Melvin Backman
The Boeing Starliner crew might not return this year — or on the Boeing Starliner
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is still stuck in orbit, and it still remains unclear when it or its crew might come back to Earth. NASA representatives provided an update to the craft’s mission Wednesday suggesting that planning for a return trip might stretch from late this summer into late this winter — possibly aboard a vessel from Boeing rival SpaceX. — Melvin Backman
Australia’s biggest airline wants $6 million back from former CEO
Australia’s biggest airline, after an embarrassing airfare cancellation scandal, has done some soul-searching and decided that the ordeal was so mortifying that it has to claw back millions in compensation from its CEO at the time. Qantas announced Thursday that it would be revoking A$9.3 million ($6 million) in stock options from Alan Joyce for his role in the drama. — Melvin Backman
Frontier Airlines just coined a funny way of saying it’s having trouble filling flights
Frontier Airlines just released its second-quarter earnings. It posted $31 million in net income on $973 million in revenue. The former number was above expectations but down from the same time last year, and the latter was up from last year but below expectations. — Melvin Backman
Ryanair can’t get Boeing planes, so it’s spending $873 million on something else instead
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is famous for, among other things, his public complaints about how quickly (or, rather, slowly) Boeing delivers airplanes to his company. And since Boeing is struggling to build planes more quickly after regulator-imposed slowdowns following a door plug blowout earlier this year, Ryanair has an idea of what to do with that money instead. — Melvin Backman