A Black airplane is suing Delta Air Lines for allegedly stealing his idea for a text messaging app.
Craig Alexander says his idea for the text messaging app would greatly decrease flight delays.
Alexander flew Boeing 767s and 757s for Delta for years. He says he first presented the idea to Delta in 2014. His app was called “QrewLive,” and was designed to help ensure flights depart on time, per the AJC.
He said the feedback from Delta was positive and that he received “verbal assurances that Delta would purchase his innovative text messaging platform,” according to the lawsuit over several years.
But in 2017, Delta informed him they had a change of heart.
However, the following year, Delta released its Flight Family Communication app.
“Our goal is always to develop tools that makes our employees’ jobs easier,” said Dave Holtz, Senior Vice President — Operations & Customer Center said in a media release at the time. “When communication is better, the departure process is smoother and employees are freed up more often to share timely information and engage with our customers.”
The company boasted that its app is a “digital conversation stream “visible to pilots and to flight attendants, gate agents, flight dispatchers, system operations managers and Airport Customer Service Tower personnel.
“Captain Alexander spent countless hours and more than $100,000 of his own money developing this innovative, game-changing communications platform for Delta, only to have his own employer steal it right out from under him like a thief in the night,” attorneys from Morgan & Morgan said in a statement.
Delta denies the allegations.
“While we take the allegations specified in Mr. Alexander’s Complaint seriously, they are not an accurate or fair description of Delta’s development of its internal crew messaging platform,” Delta said in a statement.
