Outraged Delta flyers blast airline over slow refunds after bosses were accused of shifting blame for chaos onto Microsoft CrowdStrike outage

Delta customers are complaining about the carrier's response to last month's CrowdStrike outage.

The airline's operations were brought to a virtual standstill because of the incident July 19, and several travelers unhappy with the company's attempts to make amends have been airing their frustrations.

Several spoke to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, citing issues that arose during the crisis like unseen hotel costs and false advice. Some reimbursements did not cover the full costs of their returns, and others were forced to wait for days for some sort of solution.

Meanwhile, Delta remains the subject of an investigation by the Department of Transportation (DOT), which has received more than 5,000 complaints about the airline's failures.

The carrier, meanwhile, continues to cast blame on CrowdStike and Microsoft, for more than 5,000 cancellations. Delta's problems persisted for days longer than other airlines.

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Delta customers complained about the carrier's response to last month's CrowdStrike outage this week to a prominent newspaper

Chris Nickinson, seen here with wife Bridget, was one of several to speak to the Wall Street Journal this week unhappy with the airline's response. He missed out on a work trip to Los Angeles, after the disaster saw him miss a connecting flight in Atlanta

'It's more the principle of just being treated respectfully,' said Chris Nickinson of his experience with Delta, recalling how he never got to his destination.

He missed out on a work trip to Los Angeles, after the disaster saw him miss a connecting flight in Atlanta from Florida.

The airline proceeded to try to reroute him to Santa Barbara, spurring Nickinson to book a last-minute hotel room in the California city.

That fell apart when Delta canceled that rebooked flight at 1 am, leading him to spend the night at the airport.

Delta then fanned the figurative flames of Nickinson's rage by telling him it wouldn't reimburse him for his $338 hotel room, despite him never spending the night.

The carrier also rejected covering the more-than $600 cost of his already booked hotel room in LA, which he also never reached.

As for an explanation, the carrier told Nickinson they don't cover 'pre-existing expenses.'

The airline proceeded to try to reroute him to Santa Barbara, spurring Nickinson to book a hotel room. That fell apart when Delta cancelled that rebooked flight at 1 am, leading him to spend the night at the airport. They would not pay for his hotel rooms in LA and Santa Barbara

'I do not accept your non excuse for not reimbursing me for hotel expenses. YOU FAILED TO GET ME TO MY DESTINATION', he reportedly wrote in response.

He went on to brand the three separate deposits of 10,000 SkyMiles provided by Delta 'a joke' - pointing to others receiving similar restitution for far less serious plights like broken WiFi.

He also reiterated how he is a 'million miler' - meaning the last thing he needs is more miles.

After much complaining, he said he was able to obtain a further $300 in the form of a travel credit, as well as a fully refunded ticket.

He told the Journal that he is among the more than 5,000 who have filed a complaint against the carrier with the Transportation Department.

Another person to speak out against Delta and their response to the disaster was Kyle Kastranec, who became stranded after flying with his wife from Detroit to Denver.

He recalled how his return flight had been scheduled for Sunday, and how Delta told him that the earliest they could get him home was late Wednesday.

This, he recalled, was unacceptable, as he had a work conference in Detroit that Tuesday.

Kyle Kastranec recallled how he was forced to drive the more than 1,200 miles for 20 straight hours to get to his destination after Delta told him he would have to wait three days for a flight

He was forced to drive the more than 1,200 mile journey there instead, a trip he said took 20 straight hours.

When he went on to complain, Delta responded by offering him a choice between $50 or 5,000 miles. 

Similar to Nickinson, he called that 'laughable,' before filing his own DOT complaint.

Delta, in turn, refunded his and his wife's return flight, while reimbursing them a further $900 for expenses.

This covered the cost of their hotel room in Denver, as well as other things like cab rides, gas and snacks.

Included in the reimbursement package was $250 reserved for a rental car, which Nickinson send ended up costing $348.

When he brought this up, Delta reportedly responded by telling him the price for this unremarkable Nissan Rouge exceeded the preset amount - leading the chief creative marketing strategist to issue another complaint to the Journal.

'To enforce these caps in really extenuating circumstances like this feels really odd to me,' Kastranec said, claiming it was not the $98 that irked him, but the principle behind it.

The final person to speak to the Journal for their report was Genevieve Pierce Kyle, whose plans of a trip to Europe from her native Austin were foiled by Delta's scheduling mishaps

'My loyalty is kind of out the window,' he added, after saying he previously had went out of his way to fly with the airline.

The final person to speak to the Journal for their report was Genevieve Pierce Kyle, whose plans of a trip to Europe from her native Austin were foiled by Delta's scheduling mishaps.

The first obstacle came in the form of a delay to her first flight to Atlanta, which meant her possibly missing her connecting flight to Scotland.

After not being able to reach any Delta reps for an hour-and-a-half, she realized the next earliest Delta flight to Edinburgh would be days away.

Again, this was unacceptable for the Texas mom, who was taking the trip with her husband and 15-year-old daughter.

She told the Journal how she had already paid for hotels and train fare in not only Scotland but London and Amsterdam as well.  

She also said she was set to met an old friend whom she had not seen in 30 years, leading her to book three last minute tickets on Air Canada to catch a connecting flight in Toronto, which altogether cost her an eyewatering $5,000.

Delta has claimed the airline suffered a whopping $500 million in losses and extra costs, and is continuing to frame CrowdStrike and partner Microsoft as the cause of the disaster. The federal investigation into Delta's response to the chaos remains ongoing

The family would eventually make it to Scotland, at which point she was able to reach someone at Delta who wrongly told her she was to miss out on her return flight since the family did not embark on the first leg of their long-planned trip.

This left her to pay another $7,000 for a series of new tickets - this time from Delta - all at the unnamed staffer's advice.

Only later did another Delta worker realize the mistake, and refund her the $7,000, she said.

Moreover, after 12 hours of waiting on the carrier's customer service chat portal online, she was able to get a $4,600 for the misspent $5,000, despite the oversight seemingly occurring because of erroneous instruction from a Delta staffer.

'We’re not very frequent fliers, so we’re maybe a little naive in how we went about this,' Pierce Kyle conceded. 

Delta CEO Ed Bastian, meanwhile, has claimed the airline suffered a whopping $500 million in losses and extra costs, and is continuing to frame CrowdStrike and partner Microsoft as the cause of the disaster, which lasted for days for the airline company.

The airline has hired a bigtime litigator David Boies to go after the cybersecurity firm, leading both CrowdStrike and Microsoft to slam Delta's claims surrounding the outage as 'false.'

It claimed a single sensor error led to the worldwide outage, which saw more than 8 million Microsoft user report their computers were showing the dreaded 'blue screen of death.' 

Since CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor is closely knit with Windows, its crash brought down the entire system, the company said.

The federal investigation into Delta's own response to the conflicts that ensued, meanwhile, remains ongoing.