Qantas racing against time to delay job-hopping exec

Qantas will make an 11th-hour bid to stop a former executive starting at Virgin Australia next week, out of fear he knows too much.

Qantas is racing to stop a former Jetstar executive jumping ship to rival Virgin.

Qantas will make an eleventh-hour attempt to stop a former executive starting work with Virgin Australia on Monday, out of fear he will divulge sensitive information about frequent flyers.

Former Jetstar Japan CEO Nicolas Rohrlach is days away from starting as Velocity chief executive at Virgin, after accepting the position in December.

But Qantas has applied to the Supreme Court of Singapore for an injunction to stop him, until its claim that he is legally not allowed to work for Virgin until September can be heard.

Qantas’s objection stems from the fact Mr Rohrlach was preparing to join the airline’s own loyalty business in a senior position and had been privy to sensitive commercial information in the process.

Airline executive Nicolas Rohrlach is at the centre of a legal battle between Qantas and Virgin. Picture: LinkedIn

Concerned about his inside knowledge of the frequent flyer program, Qantas embarked on legal action to enforce a six-month non-compete clause, to delay his start with Virgin Australia.

“This is an inglorious sequence of events, to formally accept a new job and as part of the preparation for it receive highly sensitive and confidential information, then turn around just few weeks later and take a job where that information would give you a real advantage,” a Qantas spokesman said.

“At no point after negotiations between Mr Rohrlach and Virgin began, and right up until he informed Qantas of his new role at Velocity, was it suggested that the flow of information from Qantas should cease.”

Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka has been poaching executives from Alan Joyce’s Qantas. Picture: Dylan Coker

The matters are going before the courts in Singapore, after Mr Rohrlach and Virgin Australia won the right to have them heard in the city-state where industrial cases tend to go in favour of employees.

Qantas had wanted the issue dealt with by the courts in Australia, arguing all the interested parties were in New South Wales and it made no sense to go to Singapore.

However Mr Rohrlach’s employment contract with Qantas was signed in Singapore, and included an exclusive jurisdiction clause.

As a result the NSW Supreme Court found in favour of Mr Rohrlach and Virgin and the decision was upheld on appeal, with Qantas ordered to pay the other parties’ costs.

A directions hearing in the case is set down for May 22 in Singapore, with the final hearing not expected until June or July.

Virgin Australia is keen for Mr Rohrlach to begin in his role as Velocity CEO which has been vacant since January 2020 following the departure of Karl Schuster.

In a statement a spokeswoman said they were disappointed Qantas had chosen to criticise them in the media while court proceedings were afoot in relation to this matter.

“(We) categorically deny that we have been anything but proper and appropriate in Mr Rohrlach’s recruitment,” said the spokeswoman.

“We are confident our position will be vindicated in court.”

She said it was “nice the dominant market player was finally recognising it had competition but it’s disappointing they have chosen to attack us rather than get on with the job at hand”.

“We will not be distracted from our commitment to be Australia’s most loved and best value airline for business and leisure travellers,” the spokeswoman said.

“At this particularly critical juncture, with vaccines rolling out and new virus variants emerging, Australian airlines need to work to get our country flying again.”

Valued at $700m, Velocity was the only part of the airline that was not placed in administration when Virgin Australia collapsed last April.

Velocity was included in the sale to US private equity firm Bain Capital who installed former Jetstar and Qantas executive Jayne Hrdlicka as Virgin Australia’s new CEO.

Since her appointment, Ms Hrdlicka has hired five of her former colleagues at Qantas and Jetstar including Mr Rohrlach, chief people officer Lisa Burquest, chief transformation officer Alistair Hartley, chief customer and digital officer Paul Jones and chief corporate affairs officer Moksha Watts.

Originally published as Qantas racing against time to delay job-hopping exec