Top > Business > 2006 > May > 2006-05-31

Bad Business Ethics at Airline Company

You assume that your businesses website will not be hacked in to by competitors don`t you? Air Canada thought the same thing, before they discovered that Canadian competitors WestJet Airlines were logging on to their internal website that contained passenger-load information. Air Canada sued their biggest competitors for $220 million Canadian, or $199 million US. This was counter-suited by WestJet, claiming that Air Canada hired private investigators to retrieve documents from garbage cans of a former executive.

Though these battles have been ensuing between the two airlines for several months now, it was only Monday that WestJet Airlines agreed to 15.5 million Canadian dollars, or $14 million, to settle the accusations of internal website spying. A statement released on the same day stated that WestJet`s actions "[were] both unethical and unacceptable and WestJet accepts full responsibility". In addition, the same statement declared that WestJet regrets the actions that it took in it`s attempts to beat out their competitor.

The settlement surprised many people as there was no advanced notice, in fact, at an investors` conference earlier in May WestJet executives were getting frustrated with Air Canada`s unwillingness to present documentation to the Ontario court hearing. The settlement includes a 5.5 million Canadian dollar payment by WestJet to cover Air Canada`s legal and investigation costs, as well as 10 million Canadian, which will be paid out to children`s charities chosen by Air Canada.