Judge Axes Flight Disruption Suit Tied to CrowdStrike Outage

Passengers' Nuisance Claim Against CrowdStrike Barred by Airline Deregulation Act Michael Novinson (MichaelNovinson) • June 19, 2025

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by airline passengers accusing CrowdStrike of negligence and public nuisance for pushing a faulty software update that disrupted airline operations in 2024.

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U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found the plaintiffs' claims against CrowdStrike were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act since the harm was tied to airline services such as ticketing, boarding and flight scheduling. Although CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity vendor and not an airline, Pitman determined that the ADA still applied because CrowdStrike's faulty software update directly affected airline services.

"Nothing suggests CrowdStrike's services are tenuous or peripheral," Pitman wrote in an 11-page order Wednesday. "They argue that airline passengers and customers, 'Relied on CrowdStrike's performance of ...