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Qantas has accused a former pilot of stealing confidential information after defecting to Virgin Australia.
The Flying Kangaroo is suing Luke Fogarty, its former head of E190 commercial, operations and performance, who left the airline for a senior flight operations role with Virgin in September and is due to start next year following the expiration of a non-compete agreement.
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As reported in The Australian, Qantas alleges Fogarty “copied several thousand megabytes of electronic documents” from its servers between 15 and 17 September, including agreements with Alliance over the wet-leasing of E190s; supplements for route manuals concerning 737s, 787s, A330s, and A380s; and a manual for airport ground handlers.
The Federal Court has ordered Fogarty not to make any copies of the alleged documents; Qantas has also sought orders for him to delete any sensitive data and destroy any hard copies in his possession.
“The confidential documents concern Qantas’s commercially sensitive business affairs, including aircraft procurement, commercial strategy and operations management,” the airline said in its statement of claim to the Federal Court.
“The documents are subject to measures put in place by Qantas to prevent them from disclosure, are not in the public domain and are confidential to Qantas.
“The vast and detailed extent of the information contained in the documents and concerning several facets of the Qantas business as a large-scale provider of commercial aviation services, is such that it may reasonably be presumed to exceed Mr Fogarty’s general know-how.”
The Flying Kangaroo claimed that Fogarty breached his employment contract and that it has suffered damage “arising from the use he was capable of making of the document in his role at Virgin, and the springboard advantage that he is afforded by reason of his breaches”.
Virgin Australia, which is not a party to the case, announced in August that it was replacing its four ageing regional Fokker 100s with new Embraer E190-E2s, which would be based in Perth when they arrive in 2025.
The move follows a review undertaken by Virgin in 2021 to replace the bulk of its Fokker 100 fleet, with most of the Fokkers now supplanted by 737-700s flying under Virgin Australia’s mainline AOC, while four have been kept on to service smaller airports.
Qantas’ lawsuit against Fogarty will return to the Federal Court on 18 November.
