Delta Air Lines spent $170 million on customer and crew-related costs in wake of CrowdStrike outage

• Delta Air Lines reported a $380 million hit from the CrowdStrike outage.
• The carrier spent about $170 million on customer and crew-related costs — but saved on fuel.
• Delta stock fell in premarket trading despite the positive numbers before turning positive.

Delta Air Lines spent about $170 million on customer and crew expenses after July’s CrowdStrike outage.

Delta was the worst-hit airline as it canceled more than 7,000 flights across five days when a flawed CrowdStrike update crashed millions of computers worldwide.

In its third-quarter earnings report released Thursday, Delta said the incident cost it $380 million.

Some $170 million, or about 45% of the total, went on non-fuel expenses, primarily “customer expense reimbursements” such as cash refunds and frequent-flyer miles, as well as crew-related costs.

Delta did not elaborate further, but crew-related costs could include salaries, expenses, and hotel stays as it canceled thousands of flights in late July.

CEO Ed Bastian previously said the CrowdStrike fiasco cost the airline as much as $500 million and that it would sue the IT company.

Thursday’s earnings report said that the flight cancellations also meant Delta saved $50 million on fuel.

Despite the CrowdStrike hit, Delta turned a profit in the quarter, with pre-tax income of $1.56 billion, up 3% on the same period last year. Net income rose 15% to $1.27 billion on operating revenue of $15.6 billion.

Its earnings per share of $1.50 were slightly below analysts’ expectations. The company also reduced its forecast for adjusted earnings per share to $1.60 for the fourth quarter, down from $1.85.

Delta dipped almost 4% in premarket trading before heading into positive territory closer to the bell.