Qantas claims senior pilot ‘stole several thousand megabytes’ of sensitive documents

Qantas has accused a former executive of copying sensitive documents about aircraft procurement and commercial strategy as he was quitting for a senior job at Virgin Australia.

Stepping up a Federal Court search and seizure action, Qantas claims QantasLink senior pilot Luke Fogarty turned executive copied “several thousand megabytes” of documents.

Newly-revealed allegations include Capt. Fogarty copying manuals for Boeing and Airbus jets before uploading this copyright-protected material to email and iCloud accounts.

Qantas claims Capt. Fogarty told QantasLink boss Ben Sacilotto on September 17 that he had accepted an offer to become Virgin’s head of performance and deputy chief pilot on its Boeing 737 fleet.

“Virgin is the Applicant’s major direct competitor in the domestic aviation industry,” Qantas alleged in a statement of claim released Friday.

The details of Capt. Fogarty’s alleged Virgin role have been spelt out three weeks after Qantas gained orders for lawyers to raid his Melbourne home and seize computer files and storage devices.

Capt. Fogarty has not responded to the serious allegations made by Qantas. “Unfortunately as this matter is before the courts, I will not be commenting at this time,” he said Friday.

But while declining to address Mr Sacilotto’s claim about his new role, Capt. Fogarty said he had not yet started at Virgin.

Ahead of him leaving Qantas last month, he had been the operations manager for QantasLinks Embraer E190 workhorse and had overseen the introduction of the bigger Airbus A220-300 aircraft.

The orders and applications released by the court last week revealed allegations that Capt. Fogarty had copied documents related to its comprehensive lease agreements with Alliance Aviation Services for E190 aircraft.

Qantas alleged his duties included all strategic, commercial and operational elements of its E190 crew, maintenance and insurance agreement with Alliance.

Qantas lawyers gained the go-ahead for the raids on October 9 based on affidavits that have not yet been released, even in redacted form.

The newly-released claim includes allegations Capt. Fogarty copied Qantas’s route manual supplements for Boeing 737 and 787 aircraft, as well as for Airbus A380 and A330 jets.

Also in alleged breach of copyright law, the departing expect allegedly copied Qantas’s ground handling manuals for jets.

Qantas claimed his conduct was “flagrant” and a “deliberate infringement” of its rights.

The airline has not commented on the legal action, beyond repeating allegations contained in published court documents.