On May 2, the Teamsters announced that they filed for mediation with the National Mediation Board (NMB) because have negotiations broken down with Flight Options, LLC.

The Airline Division filed an application for mediation with the NMB, the federal agency responsible for collective bargaining in the airline and railroad industries, on April 30.

Approximately 575 Flight Options pilots, represented by Local 1108, are employed by the Cleveland-based air carrier that provides fractional ownership services and charter flights in a fleet of luxury business jets. Negotiations between the parties began in June 2006.

 “The current management group is out of touch with its pilots’ legitimate career aspirations,” said Greg Rountree, Local 1108 President. “They are responsible for rates of pay and working conditions that fall far below the industry standard, established by union and non-union carriers alike.

“We are two years into the process and this management group complains about the pace of bargaining. Meanwhile, management picks fights with their pilots regarding issues that do not cost the carrier a penny, such as demanding management access to federally mandated cockpit voice recorders for disciplinary purposes, forcing pilots to cross the picket lines of colleagues engaged in a job action, and spending weeks developing basing language to address unrealistic scenarios. This management group needs to change its priorities in a hurry.”  

Negotiations earlier in April failed to produce a single agreement.

According to publicly available information, Flight Options pilots are already the lowest-paid pilots in the fractional industry.

“The days of the pilots subsidizing this management group’s business model must come to an end,” Rountree said. “We filed for mediation because we want to advance the process of turning this company into a respectable place to work and making it a great place for customers to invest their money.”  

While the parties wait for the NMB to assign a mediator, the Teamsters Union has informed management that it wants to continue to negotiate directly with company representatives in accordance with the previously agreed-upon schedule.

Flight Options, a former subsidiary of The Raytheon Company, is currently owned by three venture capital firms, HIG Capital, LLC, which is Miami-based, and Resilience Capital Partners, LLC and Directional Aviation Capital, LLC, both of Cleveland. 

Based in Columbus, Local 1108 represents more than 3,000 pilots employed within the fractional ownership segment of the airline industry.