CrowdStrike Wins Dismissal of Air Traveler Class Action Over 2024 Outage

CrowdStrike Inc. secured a legal victory after the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed a consumer class-action lawsuit filed by airline passengers who blamed the cybersecurity company for widespread flight delays and cancellations triggered by a faulty software update in July 2024. Judge Robert Pitman ruled that the claims, which sought compensation for expenses such as rebooked tickets, hotel rooms and missed work, are pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act. Allowing the suit, he wrote in an 11-page order, would effectively impose state-level tort rules on airline operations and their vendors, creating incentives for cybersecurity providers to alter services or raise prices. The outage snarled air travel nationwide, delaying as many as 46,000 flights and canceling more than 5,100 on the first day alone, according to the complaint. The decision leaves passengers without a federal damages remedy against CrowdStrike, though the company still faces separate investor litigation over its software-testing practices.