Delta’s CrowdStrike Debacle: A Service Failure Analysis

Last week, I wrote about a potential condom shortage. 

It’s only appropriate that I write a child-related article this week. 

As someone who writes frequently about airlines and service operations in general, I find the recent debacle involving Delta Airlines particularly compelling. 

Delta's decision to not allow unaccompanied minors on board during the CrowdStrike crisis raises several questions. 

The main one is:

“WHO, IN THEIR RIGHT MIND, THINKS IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO LEAVE UNACCOMPANIED MINORS STRANDED???”

This decision was not only baffling, but also irresponsible.

Imagine your child traveling unaccompanied, most likely for something important like attending or returning from camp, and either missing the first day (which may mean not being able to attend at all), either being left stranded at the end since there’s probably no one that can stay with them until they’re allowed on a flight home. 

As someone who has flown different airlines, has traveled as an unaccompanied minor (many years ago), and has had his kids travel as unaccompanied minors (usually to visit their grandparents), I can say that we place a significant amount of trust in these airlines, especially when it involves our children. 

We can all understand that service failures happen, but we expect airlines to use their best judgment to resolve them and to be fair in their resolution. 

There are canonical papers on service recovery that argue this is an excellent opportunity for companies to earn and retain customers. Customers appreciate it when companies resolve issues effectively during service failures. 

However, I would like to challenge this notion, especially when it comes to such lapses of judgment. 

Let’s delve deeper. 

The Crisis

Let’s start by describing the issue. 

The crisis began when Delta’s CrowdStrike system flagged a potential security threat, causing the airline to shut down its operations temporarily. While the threat turned out to be a false alarm, the disruption had already cascaded through Delta’s network, resulting in over 1,000 flight cancellations and affecting more than 100,000 passengers. 

As mentioned above, the most controversial aspect of the Delta debacle was the unaccompanied minors, some as young as 8 years old, who were left stranded with little to no knowledge of what comes next and, in most cases, without temporary accommodations.

What was Delta’s rationale?

“In an email statement early Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said that it implemented the suspension to ‘protect minors from being separated from their families and caregivers in the event of flight disruptions or cancellations’ following the outage. ‘We take seriously the trust caregivers place in us with their children’s travel, and sincerely apologize that that trust was compromised through confusion around the embargo,’ the statement said.”

This seems odd since preventing children from being separated from their families requires that they are with their families. In this case, they were not with their families. In fact, they were flying to reunite with their families…

It sounds like a logic test, and not a very difficult one at that.

The rationale behind this decision then could be attributed to several other factors:

Safety Concerns: Given CrowdStrike’s impact on flight operations, Delta may have prioritized safety and chose not to board minors until it could guarantee secure and stable traveling conditions.

Resource Constraints: The abruptness of the crisis may have stretched Delta’s resources thin, leading to an inability to provide the necessary support and supervision for unaccompanied minors on board. Airlines typically have strict protocols for handling these vulnerable passengers, including dedicated staff supervision and emergency contact procedures. However, in the chaos of the mass cancellations, these protocols appear to have broken down.

Regulatory and Liability Considerations: Airlines are subject to strict regulations regarding the transportation of minors, and the fear of potential legal repercussions may have influenced Delta’s decision to err on the side of caution.

It’s clear that the idea of leaving unaccompanied minors stranded presents a unique and rather troubling aspect of this particular service failure. 

I’m sure the airline was in crisis mode, but regardless of the reasons, the failure to properly care for these young passengers represents a significant lapse in Delta’s duty of care. Many have seen this as a significant breach of trust, which is a critical component in the service industry.

Trust acts as a foundation for customer loyalty and satisfaction. When customers trust a service provider, they’re more likely to forgive occasional lapses. However, when trust is broken, especially in sensitive situations that involve children, the damage can be long-lasting. 

The incident also highlights the role of fairness. 

When there’s a service failure, certain customers will receive better and faster resolutions. A couple on their way to a wedding or a funeral will be prioritized, and very few of the passengers being bumped will complain about it. However, when a vulnerable group is deprioritized altogether without any obvious reason, there’s a sense of unfair treatment. 

I would argue that fair treatment is central to service recovery, as it directly affects how customers perceive an organization’s sincerity and competence. In this case, it’s clear that no one thought Delta’s decision was fair. I doubt that any adult, whether they have children or not, would view being given a kid’s seat on a flight as fair.

Managing Service Failure: The Heskett and Sasser Framework

Traditionally, service recovery in the airline industry has followed the principles outlined by Heskett and Sasser in their seminal work on service profit chains. The research suggests that effective service recovery can not only salvage a customer relationship, but potentially strengthen it, leading to increased loyalty —a phenomenon they term as the “service recovery paradox.” According to this theory, customers who experience a well-handled service recovery may end up more satisfied than those who never experienced a problem in the first place.

However, the Delta CrowdStrike incident calls into question whether this approach is sufficient for large-scale, high-impact service failures, particularly those involving vulnerable passengers like unaccompanied minors. The conventional wisdom of compensating for inconvenience and offering apologies may fall short when dealing with the emotional distress and potential safety concerns involved in such situations.

Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Recent research provides a more nuanced and sometimes contrasting perspective to Sasser and Heskett’s work, particularly relevant in understanding Delta’s predicament. A 2023 study by Elbaz et al., “Customer Responses to Airline Service Failure and Recovery Strategies: The Moderating Role of Service Failure Habit,” directly challenges the universality of the service recovery paradox. 

Through a quantitative analysis of Egyptian and Omani airline customers, the researchers found that habitual service failures significantly reduce the effectiveness of recovery strategies and negatively impact customer forgiveness and loyalty. Moreover, the severity of the service failure was found to exacerbate negative customer responses.

Similarly, a study by Andreassen challenges the service recovery paradox finding that even excellent service recovery efforts do not elevate customer perceptions and intentions above those of customers who never experienced a service failure. While recovery efforts do have a positive impact compared to no recovery, they generally fail to fully restore customer perception to pre-failure levels. 

This finding is particularly pertinent to Delta’s situation. The airline’s repeated operational issues, culminating in the stranding of unaccompanied minors, may lead to a substantial decline in customer trust and loyalty. Delta is still ranked quite high in terms of customer satisfaction, but in 2024 it has matched other airlines in terms of delays and cancellations, and the high emotional stakes involved in situations concerning children could further intensify negative perceptions, suggesting that Delta must prioritize rebuilding trust and implementing highly effective recovery strategies to mitigate potential long-term damage to its reputation and customer relations.

I wouldn’t call Delta a habitual offender…yet. But when service failures become habitual, the long-term impact on customer loyalty becomes negative, regardless of any recovery efforts. This implies that Delta needs to go beyond traditional service recovery strategies, and focus on systemic improvements to prevent future failures.

The Role of Fairness

Complementing these insights, a study by Choi and Choi provides important nuances to Sasser and Heskett’s service recovery paradox theory, particularly in the context of severe service failures like Delta’s unaccompanied minors incident. 

The findings highlight that customer affection, influenced by perceived justice in service recovery, plays a crucial role in shaping loyalty and word-of-mouth behavior. This suggests that the effectiveness of service recovery isn’t just about solving the problem (as Sasser and Heskett might emphasize), but also about rebuilding emotional connections with customers. 

For Delta, this implies that their recovery strategy should go beyond mere compensation or problem-solving. Instead, they should focus on all three dimensions of justice —distributive, procedural, and interactional— with special emphasis on the latter two, which consistently influence customer affection regardless of failure severity. 

In the case of stranded unaccompanied minors, where the severity is high, Delta must ensure fair compensation (distributive justice) while also demonstrating efficient handling of the situation (procedural justice) and empathetic, respectful communication with affected families (interactional justice). By doing so, Delta could potentially turn this severe service failure into an opportunity to rebuild and even strengthen customer relationships, aligning with, but also extending, Sasser and Heskett’s concept of the service recovery paradox.

Does Recovery Start with Forgiveness?

To better understand how to approach service recovery in similar cases, we can turn to the paper “The Critical Role of Customer Forgiveness in Successful Service Recovery,” in which Harrison-Walker asks: Which factors contribute to customer forgiveness following a service failure, and how does forgiveness impact customer behavior?

The motivation for this research stems from the recognition that not all service recoveries lead to positive outcomes, even when companies follow best practices. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with quantitative surveys across two different service contexts. 

The results revealed that customer forgiveness is a critical mediating factor between service recovery efforts and positive customer outcomes, such as repurchase intentions and positive word-of-mouth.

For Delta, these findings suggest an approach to service recovery that goes beyond standard compensation and apologies. To foster genuine forgiveness among affected customers, Delta should focus on personalized communication, transparency regarding the failure’s causes, and demonstrable changes to prevent future incidents. This might involve extraordinary recovery efforts that create memorable positive experiences, such as ongoing support, follow-up care to address lingering emotional impacts, or long-term perks. 

I will give you an example of the opposite.

Recently, I was on a flight that was so delayed that we left at 4:45 am instead of 2 am. At the end of the flight, the crew apologized and we all received a small gift as a token of appreciation. I thought it was a kind gesture until we received the exact same gift on the next leg, which was not delayed at all. I understand how marketing works, but this is exactly how you don’t recover from service failures. 

Bottom Line

In conclusion, while Sasser and Heskett’s service recovery paradox remains influential, the Delta CrowdStrike incident and recent research highlight the need for a more nuanced approach to service recovery, at least in the airline industry. 

Factors such as failure frequency, severity, specific justice dimensions, and industry context play crucial roles in determining the effectiveness of service recovery strategies.

For Delta, and other airlines, this evolving understanding calls for more sophisticated, customer-centric strategies for managing crises, particularly when dealing with vulnerable passengers. 

The incident serves as a stark reminder that in the airline industry, service recovery isn’t just about salvaging customer relationships. It’s about fulfilling a sacred trust, especially when it comes to the safety and well-being of children entrusted to their care. 

We often take for granted the immense trust we place in air travel. However, incidents like Boeing’s ongoing safety issues and Delta’s recent operational disruptions serve as reminders of how dependent we’ve become on these companies. 

These events also highlight how airlines and manufacturers sometimes fall short in honoring the responsibility they have undertaken in their societal role. While ‘negligent’ is a strong term with legal implications, it’s clear that the industry occasionally fails to fully appreciate or act upon the gravity of the trust we place in them.