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Teamsters File for Mediation With Flight Options

Union Leaders Say Company Management Is Out Of Touch With Its Pilots And Industry Standards

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 2 PRNewswire-USNewswire — The Teamsters announced Friday they filed for mediation with the National Mediation Board (NMB) because negotiations have broken down with Flight Options, LLC.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters 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 Teamsters Local 1108, are employed by the Cleveland-based air carrier, which 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," Local 1108 President Greg Rountree said. "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."

Rountree continued, "We are two years into the process and this management group complains about the pace of bargaining. Meanwhile they pick 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 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, Teamsters Local 1108 represents more than 3,000 pilots employed within the fractional ownership segment of the airline industry.

SOURCE Teamsters Local 1108

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