Kip Powick Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Here is a real spy thriller. If thius has been posted before...tell me I'll remove it. I haven't seen one with this much detail... The legal battle between Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. is turning into the equivalent of a spy thriller, complete with allegations of corporate espionage, double agents, clandestine phone calls and mysterious garbage collections. Air Canada announced on Tuesday that it is suing WestJet, alleging the airline secretly tapped into an employee reservation website to steal confidential information on flights by Canada's biggest airline and its subsidiary Zip. Air Canada alleges a former employee who now works at WestJet allowed his employee access code to be used thousands of times every day by executives at the Calgary-based rival. WestJet has yet to respond to the allegations and said it is studying the suit. Stephen Smith, the chief executive officer of Zip who once ran WestJet, said in an affidavit that he was tipped off about the alleged pilfering last December by an anonymous caller. "On December 19, 2003, at 4:50 p.m., I received a telephone call at my office from a caller who would only identify himself as a WestJet employee," Mr. Smith said in the document. The caller said a senior manager at WestJet had shown him detailed information about Air Canada's load factors, the percentage of seats sold on a flight. Mr. Smith says in the affidavit that the information had been sent to the manager by Mark Hill, vice-president of strategic planning at WestJet. The caller said he contacted Air Canada "because he was upset, disgusted, and was concerned about the unfair business practice in what [the caller] described as a vicious business," Air Canada alleged in documents filed in court. Mr. Smith said he was convinced the information came from the employee reservation system and he ordered an internal probe. A team of Air Canada investigators began working with officials at IBM to track access to the site and sift through company records. According to the documents, the investigators determined that the culprit was Jeffrey Lafond, a financial analyst at WestJet. Mr. Lafond left Canadian Airlines International Ltd. in October, 2000, just as it was being taken over by Air Canada. As part of his severance package, Mr. Lafond received two Air Canada tickets, on a space-available basis, every year for five years. Like all employees and retirees, Mr. Lafond was given access to the special reservation website to check the space availability and book flights. Air Canada alleges Mr. Lafond allowed Mr. Hill and others at WestJet to access the site up to 4,000 times a day between May, 2003, and March, 2004. (The airline said changes to the site did not allow investigators to search other periods.) In other affidavits, Air Canada officials say the information was crucial to WestJet because it allowed the airline to identify Air Canada's best routes and match the service. Air Canada alleges that the information was instrumental in WestJet expanding its market share in Canada from 10 per cent to 30 per cent since January, 2000. In his affidavit, Mr. Smith alleged the accessing by WestJet stopped suddenly on March 19, 2004. That coincides with the departure of Michael Rodyniuk, director of sales and marketing at Zip, who took a job at WestJet on March 24, 2004, and comes across as the equivalent of a double agent in the affidavit. Mr. Smith says Mr. Rodyniuk, a friend of Mr. Hill's, was deeply involved in helping Air Canada find the mole. He even agreed to turn over private e-mails he received from Mr. Hill, the affidavit alleges. However, Mr. Rodyniuk then quit without turning over the e-mails, the affidavit says. After he left, Mr. Smith ordered a forensic analysis on Mr. Rodyniuk's computer and found the e-mails to and from Mr. Hill, according to the affidavit. Based on those e-mails, Mr. Smith said he is convinced Mr. Rodyniuk told Mr. Hill on March 19, 2004, that Air Canada knew about Mr. Lafond, the alleged mole. Mr. Hill has declined to comment on the suit. But he has complained privately to several people in recent weeks about garbage bags being illicitly removed from outside his house in Victoria's exclusive Oak Bay district by unauthorized workers driving a pickup truck rented in Richmond, B.C. He has said he believes them to have been employed by Air Canada and to have been looking for confidential WestJet information. He also said a police investigation was under way into the matter. Asked about the matter yesterday, Oak Bay Chief of Police Ben Andersen would not identify the complainant, citing confidentiality, but confirmed that "there was an investigation similar to what you described . . . within the past week." The probe included checking out a licence plate number provided to the police. "Beyond the fact that it was a rental, we haven't taken any further action on it," Chief Andersen said, adding that taking garbage left at the curbside is not in and of itself an offence. "But if you trespass, that's another issue," he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flapsforty Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Yes I know how he feels. When I am disgusted, or concered about something at my company I quite often call the management at another company to solve it. Why just last week I spoke to Robert about the type of crew water we were beeing given... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fax Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 That's Tres Weird I was in Oak Bay last weekend (true)...and didn't notice any clandestine pickup truck. What a waste of money...all they had to do was call 'ol Fax...I would've been thru that garbage can like a fat kid after an M&M. This is going to be good to follow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wolfman Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 and the source was...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest flyersclub Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 sadly ac is focused on the wrong thing again .. since 2000, they have blamed all their woes on others and this is another example. i think it's a sad statement that ac is publicly admitting that they never built safeguards into this source of load information. when i first saw the employee travel website i was surprised and commented that all their load info was there for thousands to view ... but i also said they must have careful safeguards that would raise flags when anyone's id was used more than usual ... guess not eh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fax Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 Pretty sad state of affairs. Don't blame the criminal for B & E...point the finger at the poor sap who left the door unlocked. Crappy defense IMHO & typical of our "not my fault" North American society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fax Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 Pretty sad state of affairs. Don't blame the criminal for a B & E...point the finger at the poor sap who left the door unlocked. Crappy defense IMHO & typical of our "not my fault" North American society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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