Kip Powick Posted November 25, 2004 Share Posted November 25, 2004 Airline says trash data a treasure By BRENT JANG From Thursday's Globe and Mail WestJet Airlines Ltd. generated summaries of Air Canada's ''best and worst'' routes by snooping into the numbers of seats sold, according to court documents in a corporate espionage case that has riveted the country's aviation industry. The "summary reports" -- outlining the number of seats available on an Air Canada route and how many passengers boarded -- have become the centrepiece so far in the carrier's $220-million lawsuit against WestJet. Private investigators hired by Air Canada retrieved shredded documents in March from WestJet co-founder Mark Hill's trash in the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay. For a two-month period starting Nov. 3, 2003, according to one summary, Air Canada's top domestic "city pair" routes are led by "YUL-YVR, YYZ-YVR, YOW-YVR." Translated, that means Montreal-Vancouver flights proved to be popular with 85.5 per cent of available seats filled, followed by Toronto-Vancouver (84.8 per cent) and Ottawa-Vancouver (83.7 per cent). A list of Air Canada's "best 32 transborder performers" is topped by Miami-Montreal, followed by Honolulu-Vancouver, Calgary-Los Angeles, Phoenix-Calgary and Montreal-L.A. The transborder survey started Jan. 3, 2004, but it's unclear when it ended because a strip is missing that is a quarter-inch (6.35 mm) in width. Copies of 24 pages of digitally reconstructed documents are part of Air Canada's court filings to support its lawsuit against Calgary-based WestJet. The data is contained in a key exhibit attached to an affidavit of a private investigator, Jasper Smith, hired by Air Canada. In producing the digital images of shredded documents, Air Canada is seeking to turn WestJet's trash into treasure in the courtroom. Air Canada alleges that the shredded papers contain secret data used to generate rankings such as its leading and lagging domestic routes, and also its best and worst flights into the United States. The company alleges that the information found in the trash came from its confidential reservations website for employees and retirees. In the dogfight for passengers, the summaries provide WestJet's comparable information in important categories such as "load factor" -- the percentage of available seats filled. WestJet declined comment yesterday, but it has denied any wrongdoing in its statement of defence, saying data collected about Air Canada's passenger loads came from legitimate gathering methods, including manually counting passengers boarding planes. WestJet also counters that Air Canada never labelled its website as "confidential" until after filing its lawsuit in April. Montreal-based Air Canada hired two private investigators, Mr. Smith and David Wiggs, to remove Mr. Hill's trash. Their first garbage collection took place March 22, and they went back to retrieve more trash April 5. Cody Ford of Houston-based Church Street Technology, which specializes in digital reconstruction, scanned the shredded documents and then digitally rebuilt the papers, storing the images onto three compact discs in May. In a transcript of Air Canada lawyer Earl Cherniak's cross-examination of Mr. Hill, the WestJet co-founder said information from Air Canada's website was available on a "daily basis," although a computer program could compile data over varying lengths of time and tabulate a wide range of rankings. Mr. Hill, who resigned as WestJet's vice-president of strategic planning in July, acknowledged using a "database program" to collect website data, but he said such information could be obtained through public sources. "All it costs is a little money -- $8 an hour, I could have somebody counting every passenger I want," he said in a court transcript of the cross-examination. But Air Canada alleges that the discount airline electronically spied and stole sensitive data to gain a competitive edge in setting fares and scheduling. The larger carrier alleges that WestJet's "scraping" of data from the website started in March, 2003, and lasted nearly one year. Digital images in the court filings show rankings for Air Canada's worst transborder performers for an unspecified period, led by the Quebec City-to-Fort Lauderdale flight, then the Montreal-Philadelphia return route, Calgary-Houston return and Ottawa-Boston return. Domestically, it's unclear which were the worst performers for Air Canada since that list is cut off at the bottom, but some of the flights in February, 2004, with a lot of empty seats included the Edmonton-Fort McMurray flight in Alberta, Montreal-Halifax and Toronto-Thunder Bay. The Air Canada data in the court filings were compared with WestJet on routes where the two engaged in head-to-head competition. On the popular Toronto-Vancouver flight, Air Canada's "load factor" of 84.8 per cent beat WestJet's 72.3 per cent on the same route. The comparisons shed light on where WestJet matched up well and poorly. For example, WestJet's Calgary-Saskatoon route had a higher load factor than Air Canada's competing flight, but WestJet trailed on the Vancouver-Montreal route. None of the allegations have been proved in court. Air Canada's case: Exhibit 1 This is one of the digitally reconstructed documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, submitted to court as part of Air Canada's $220-million lawsuit against WestJet Airlines Ltd. The suit alleges WestJet executives used data, obtained from a confidential reservations website for Air Canada employees, to compare number of seats sold and "load factor" between the two airlines. Paper chase March 22, 2004 Two private investigators hired by Air Canada, Jasper Smith and David Wiggs, remove WestJet co-founder Mark Hill's trash from his Oak Bay, B.C., home. March 26 Mr. Smith couriers shredded documents in a box to Forensic Document Examination Services in Ottawa, which suggests that a Houston-based firm would be best able to rebuild the papers. April 6-7 Mr. Smith flies to Ottawa to collect the box and then personally delivers the package to Cody Ford of Houston-based Church Street Technology. April-May Church Street, which specializes in digital reconstruction, begins scanning the shredded documents and digitally rebuilds the papers. How to read the document The reconstructed document compares passenger date from the two airlines. The route: CITY PAIR indicates the airport codes of the departure and arrival cities. In this case, the flight is from Toronto (YYZ) to Vancouver (YVR). Seat capacity: CAP: The number of available seats on flights during the roughly two-month period. Air Canada had 148,374 seats while WestJet had 14,435. Seats sold: OLD: The number of seats sold in the same time period. In this case, Air Canada sold 125,884 seats and WestJet sold 10,444. Load factor: F%: The percentage of available seats filled. In this case, Air Canada's load factor is 84.8% and WestJet's is 72.3%. SOURCE: COURT EXHIBITS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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