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Delta Airlines Airbus A319 Portland Oregon.
A Delta Airbus A319 landing at PDX in bright evening sunlight.
Cyberstruck

The CrowdStrike fiasco wiped out $380 million of Delta revenue. Was it even worse than feared?

The six major airlines were expected to log a loss totalling $860 million due to the outage.

Yiwen Lu
10/10/24 12:29PM

The CrowdStrike outage cost Delta Air Lines $380 million in direct revenue loss for the three months that ended in September, according to Delta’s latest earnings report.

Earlier, insurer Parametrix estimated that Fortune 500 companies would suffer from a total financial loss of $5.4 billion from the outage. The airline industry was projected to be one of the most heavily impacted industries, with the six major airlines expected to log a $860 million loss. If that aligns with the actual number, Delta’s $380 million shortfall would account for almost half of the entire airline industry’s loss and around 7% of all Fortune 500 companies’ losses.

Delta was the most affected airline after the global IT outage in July, which hit about 8.5 million devices. The company was forced to cancel 7,000 flights over five days, according to its filings. Delta struggled even after rivals picked up normal operations; in comparison, United reportedly canceled 1,500 flights over a four-day period following the onset of the outage. 

During an earnings call before market open on Thursday, Delta blamed the outage for a 45-cent dip in earnings per share, which came in at $1.50 per share, less than analysts’ expectations. Revenue was also short of Wall Street estimates. 

Most of the revenue loss was driven by refunds and customer compensations. Reimbursement and crew expenses amounted to $170 million, or nearly half of the losses. CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC that Delta was seeking compensation from CrowdStrike and Microsoft

Shares of Delta fell 3.7% immediately after market open on Thursday and gradually bounced back during intraday trading, though it was still 1.3% down in early afternoon. CrowdStrike stock was up 3.3% as of 1:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

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Rocket lab soars to new record close amid rally for retail faves

Rocket Lab ripped by roughly 10% Friday to close at a new all-time high, riding an upturn of retail enthusiasm for a coterie of tech-themed favorites, even as the broader market was more or less flat on the day.

Goldman Sachs’ basket of “retail favorites” — its heaviest weights are Reddit, AppLovin, and Tempus AI — was the second-biggest gainer among the company’s flagship US equity baskets on Friday, rising about 1.6%. The S&P was almost dead flat.

It’s not Rocket Lab’s first retail rodeo, as the money-losing company has more than doubled this year and is up nearly 700% over the last 12 months.

Oracle Wall Street Revisions

Analysts revise up anything and everything they thought about Oracle

After the company’s bombshell earnings this week, Wall Street thinks Oracle’s trajectory has changed.

markets

Six Flags pops after reiterating its guidance as theme park attendance rebounds

Six Flags shares rose more than 7% today after the company reported a rebound in attendance and early season pass sales heading into the fall. The nine-week period ended August 31 saw 17.8 million guests, up about 2% from the same stretch last year, with stronger momentum in the final four weeks. 

More importantly, Six Flags reaffirmed its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $860 million to $910 million, showing confidence that its cost and operations strategy can stay strong for the duration of the year. Riding that wave, Six Flags also said early 2026 season pass unit sales are pacing ahead of last year, and average season pass prices are up about 3%.

The good vibes come despite a drop in in-park per-capita spending, especially from admissions, where promotions and changes to attendance mix (which parks or days guests visit) have weighed. Earlier this week, the amusement giant signed a new agreement that extended its position as the exclusive amusement park partner for Peanuts™ in North America through 2030.

Despite the rally, Six Flags shares are down about 52% year to date.

markets

Rivian turns red on the year, squeezed by a recall and the looming end of the EV tax credit

Shares of EV maker Rivian are down more than 5% on Friday following the company’s recall of 24,214 vehicles due to a software issue. The stock move erases Rivian’s year-to-date gain and turns the company negative on the year.

Rivian’s 2025 model year R1S and R1T are affected by the defect, which was identified after a vehicle’s hands-free highway assist software failed to identify another vehicle on the road, causing a low-speed collision. Rivian said it’s released an over-the-air update to fix the issue.

The recall marks Rivian’s fifth this year, affecting nearly 70,000 of its vehicles.

Rivian’s shares are down more than 20% from their 2025 high, which came prior to the passage of President Trump’sbig, beautiful bill.” Through the legislation, the $7,500 EV tax credit is set to expire at the end of the month.

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