Delta on the hook for half a billion dollars

In Europe and the US, airlines are responsible for paying up if things go wrong.

In Australia, our airlines can stuff up, break the rules, let down their passengers and there are absolutely no consequences. 

There is a toothless consumer watchdog and a government that protects big business at the expense of the little guy.

The US, it has been reported that the recent global IT outage and the days-long meltdown that followed could end up costing Delta Air Lines alone up to half a billion dollars.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian put the cost at around $US500 million, news portal Travel Mole reports.

As well as the lost revenue due to days of cancellations, Bastian said Delta paid out "tens of millions of dollars per day" in compensation and hotels.

The airline said it has processed thousands of refund requests after it cancelled over 5,000 flights.

The outage was caused by a failed software update by CrowdStrike, which took thousands of websites and online services which used Microsoft systems out of action.

Once fixed the software issue was fixed Delta had further issues for several days over its crew scheduling system.