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SkyWest Airlines has launched a lawsuit against two of its former pilots, accusing the pair of hacking its systems to access worker data. The airline says the two pilots — named as Daniel Moussaron and Vikaas Krithivas — downloaded information on thousands of SkyWest employees for union organizing purposes, a move SkyWest claims is illegal.
In their defence, the two pilots deny any illegal activity, stating that they accessed the information through a “backdoor” in the airline’s “SkyWest Online” (SWOL) portal. They add that the lawsuit is a retaliatory move on the part of SkyWest in light of their union organizing efforts.
SkyWest Claims Former Pilots Scraped Employee Data
In a federal lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Utah, the regional airline accuses the two former pilots of illegally obtaining and using the information of almost 5,000 pilots and flight attendants. Moussaron and Krithivas are alleged to have used an exploit on the SWOL portal to gain access to personal information — such as phone numbers and home addresses — that were not ordinarily visible to users. The two then used this information to send unsolicited union-related communications to SkyWest employees.
SkyWest pilots are not currently part of a union, but the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) is lobbying hard for the carrier’s pilots to unionize. Moussaron and Krithivas were confronted after an employee raised concerns to SkyWest management after receiving an unsolicited call on his private phone. SkyWest claims their actions violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and also constitute a breach of contract and civil conspiracy. However, in a motion filed by Moussaron, the former SkyWest pilot said,
“At no point did I ‘bypass’ or ‘circumvent’ any server-side access control, escalate privileges or access an administrator-only function.”
How Was Employee Data Accessed?
The dispute centers on the method Moussaron and Krithivas used to obtain the data through the SWOL portal, which ordinarily provides only a limited amount of information on colleagues, such as name, airport base and supervisor. However, SkyWest claims the pair used “developer tools” to unlock hidden data fields that were present in the portal’s code, but not visibly shown on the front-end.
After initially accessing information on a smaller scale, the two pilots are accused of ramping up their scraping by implementing an automated tool. According to People, SkyWest IT records show that Moussaron first began in August 2025, where the airline says he “initiated a series of unauthorized activities to obtain pilot employee data” on two individuals, before doing it again for 18 more pilots the following day.
Over the next three months, Moussaron would obtain data on a total of 365 pilots using this method, and began coordinating his efforts with Krithivas, who joined him in September. The two eventually used a software tool to auto-scrape the personal information of 4,970 pilots, and then used it to send out mass messages and calls.
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Union Organizing Efforts
Moussaron and Krithivas both claim their actions were perfectly legal and are protected under The Railway Labor Act, which gives workers the right to unionize. As the developer tools didn’t breach any system protections but merely revealed information that was already present in the portal’s code, Moussaron’s attorney, Jonathan Thorne, says this means the pair “did not bypass security measures or otherwise obtain unauthorized access,” adding that all the contact information “was viewable using the credentials and authorizations” SkyWest provides its employees with.
Krithivas claims he was contacted by Moussaron to aid his efforts, saying that he believes the “sole intent was to collect pilot contact information to facilitate a drive to unionize SkyWest pilots.” SkyWest remains one of the largest non-unionized airlines in the US, and its management has generally resisted organized labor efforts. ALPA has been vocal in its efforts to encourage SkyWest pilots to unionize, highlighting the gap in pay and working conditions between regional airlines and their mainline counterparts.
