Class action lawsuit over CrowdStrike outage that grounded planes dismissed by US court

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: CrowdStrike gives new details on tech outage

The Austin-based cyber company CrowdStrike released new details about the outage that caused failures across the globe on Friday.

AUSTIN - A federal court in Texas ordered the dismissal of a class action lawsuit brought by airline passengers against Austin-based CrowdStrike after a software outage caused flight delays across the country.

CrowdStrike lawsuit thrown out

The backstory:

A content configuration update to CrowdStrike's system on July 19, 2024 crashed more than 8 million Microsoft Windows-based computers around the world. The outage led to disruptions at a variety of companies, including airlines.

A class action lawsuit was brought against CrowdStrike by airline passengers who were grounded due to the outage.

In the lawsuit the passengers claimed that CrowdStrike made false and misleading statements to investors about the possibility of a major IT outage.

What Happened:

The U.S. District Court of Western Texas ruled that the Airline Deregulation Act preempts the claims made in the lawsuit.

The law preempts state-law claims related to airline services.

What they're saying:

"That the plaintiffs here bring their suit against CrowdStrike, rather than against the airlines themselves, does not prevent ADA preemption," the US District Court order stated.

What's next:

CrowdStrike still faces litigation in connection to the outage.

Last month, a Georgia judge ruled that Delta Air Lines can continue to pursue a lawsuit against the cybersecurity company.

Delta has said the outage cost them $550 million in lost revenue and added expenses.