WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) on

Sunday rejected a claim by Delta Air Lines ( DAL ) that it

should be blamed for flight disruptions following a July 19

global outage sparked by a faulty update, and suggested it had

minimal potential liability.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said last week the outage had cost the

U.S. airline $500 million and that it planned to take legal

action to get compensation from the cybersecurity firm.

CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) reiterated its apology to the airline operator,

but said in a letter from an external lawyer that it is "highly

disappointed by Delta's suggestion that CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) acted

inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was

grossly negligent or committed misconduct."

Delta canceled more than 6,000 flights over a six-day

period, impacting more than 500,000 passengers. It faces a U.S.

Transportation Department investigation into why it took so much

longer for it to recover from the outage than other airlines.

The CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) letter said that "any liability by

CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) is contractually capped at an amount in the

single-digit millions."

Delta declined to comment on the CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) letter.

Within hours of the outage incident, CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) reached out

to Delta to offer assistance.

"Additionally, CrowdStrike's ( CRWD ) CEO personally reached out to

Delta's CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no

response," the letter said.

Bastian told CNBC last week CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) had offered "free

consulting advice to help us."

Delta told U.S. lawmakers last week in a letter seen by

Reuters that CrowdStrike's ( CRWD ) faulty update "impacted more than

half of Delta computers, including many of Delta's workstations

at every airport in the Delta network."

The letter added Delta's "complex IT system which

distributes and synchronizes all our data, including the data

that feeds our crew tracking and gating software, required

manual recovery."

The CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) letter added that if Delta files suit, it

will need to answer "why Delta's competitors, facing similar

challenges, all restored operations much faster" and "why Delta

turned down free onsite help from CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) professionals who

assisted many other customers to restore operations much more

quickly than Delta."

A CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) spokesperson said "public posturing about

potentially bringing a meritless lawsuit against CrowdStrike ( CRWD ) as

a long-time partner is not constructive to any party. We hope

that Delta will agree to work cooperatively to find a

resolution."