Qantas raids home of QantasLink executive Luke Fogarty as he jumps ship to upstart Virgin

Qantas lawyers have raided the home of a regional pilot turned executive, accusing him of copying highly sensitive documents before jumping ship to rival Virgin Australia.

Using draconian provisions employed by Fortescue against two scientists in May, Qantas has mounted a spring attack on former QantasLink aircraft program boss Luke Fogarty over allegedly dodgy file uploads while quitting in mid-September.

The legal battle comes as QantasLink prepares for strengthened competition from Virgin over plans unveiled in August to buy eight Embraer E190 jets for its WA arm Virgin Australia Regional Airlines.

Qantas has secured secrecy around even the identity of many of the documents allegedly copied by Capt. Fogarty, claiming they are protected by copyright law.

But Qantas filings released by Federal Court reveals he allegedly copied the airline’s comprehensive aircraft lease agreements struck with Alliance Aviation Services in 2021 and 2023 for the supply, servicing and crewing of up to 30 E190s.

Capt. Fogarty had been QantasLink’s senior operations manager for the 94-seat E190 aircraft, a workhorse of Qantas’s regional operations, before moving about two years ago to oversee the introduction of 137-seat Airbus A220-300.

Those Airbus jets began arriving early this year.

Qantas secretly filed its Federal Court action against Capt. Fogarty in Sydney three weeks ago, along with an application to search his home him in Melbourne’s outer suburbs

Based on seven affidavits not yet released by the court, Justice Stephen Burley granted gave the go-ahead for the home raid and orders barring him from sharing the allegedly ripped-off files.

He also ordered Capt. Fogarty to give the raid team access to an iPad, iPhone and online accounts suspected of holding Qantas’ documents.

The search orders point to computer files allegedly copied on to the departing executive’s Qantas laptop and a variety of alleged uploads to Mr Fogarty’s Gmail account.

The listed documents include seemingly non-contentious resignation letter dated September 17, as well as likely personal matters such as a remuneration outcome letter and employment contract.

But alleged uploads at 9.24pm on September 16 included a file named e190.zip and another file named onedrive-qantas.zip. The names of these file closely resembled the names of big files allegedly created on Mr Fogarty’s laptop at 9.17pm that night.

It is unclear whether Qantas has accused Capt. Fogarty of sharing the uploaded material, with its application referring to “using or disseminating or both” when it applied for a declaration that he breached his fiduciary duty.

Qantas said in a statement it would allege the former executive “unlawfully copied a significant number of files, including two highly confidential commercial agreements”.

Capt. Fogarty said he would “not be commenting at this time . . . as this matter is before the courts”.

Virgin declined to discuss the litigation targeting its recruit. “We are not a party to the proceeding and are therefore unable to comment,” it said.

Back-ups of computer filed seized under the Federal Court raid orders are being held by Melbourne firm Forensic IT pending a case management hearing scheduled for November 18.

Qantas must file its statement of claim this week.