Alaska Air Group forecast its fourth-quarter profit below analysts' expectations on Thursday, as higher costs associated with overstaffing and aircraft delivery delays dented margins. The Seattle, Washington-based carrier has been hit by delayed jet deliveries, which have reduced its aircraft utilization and left it with excess staffing, adding to its cost burden. "We remain resourced for higher capacity and are experiencing the lowest attrition rates across the company since 2019," Alaska Air said. It expects a high single-digit percentage increase to its unit costs in the fourth quarter over the year earlier. Alaska expects the cost pressure from excess staffing and lower capacity to be transitory and to return to resource levels relative to its capacity throughout 2025. The carrier, which completed the acquisition of its peer Hawaiian Airlines last month, forecast a fourth-quarter profit of 20 cents to 40 cents per share. Analysts on average estimated 63 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.<br/>
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Qantas has accused a former pilot of stealing confidential information after defecting to Virgin Australia. The Flying Kangaroo is suing Luke Fogarty, its former head of E190 commercial, operations and performance, who left the airline for a senior flight operations role with Virgin in September and is due to start next year following the expiration of a non-compete agreement. As reported in The Australian, Qantas alleges Fogarty “copied several thousand megabytes of electronic documents” from its servers between September 15 and 17, including agreements with Alliance over the wet-leasing of E190s; supplements for route manuals concerning 737s, 787s, A330s, and A380s; and a manual for airport ground handlers. The Federal Court has ordered Fogarty not to make any copies of the alleged documents; Qantas has also sought orders for him to delete any sensitive data and destroy any hard copies in his possession. “The confidential documents concern Qantas’s commercially sensitive business affairs, including aircraft procurement, commercial strategy and operations management,” the airline said in its statement of claim to the Federal Court. "The documents are subject to measures put in place by Qantas to prevent them from disclosure, are not in the public domain and are confidential to Qantas. The vast and detailed extent of the information contained in the documents and concerning several facets of the Qantas business as a large-scale provider of commercial aviation services, is such that it may reasonably be presumed to exceed Mr Fogarty’s general know-how.”<br/>