This month marks the two-year anniversary of a pilot union on the property at Cleveland-based fractional provider Flight Options, but there won’t be any celebration since the group has yet to agree on a contract with company management. “We’re investing our resources into getting a contract, and until we achieve this goal we have no reason to celebrate,” noted a spokesman for IBT Local 1108.

Since HIG Capital finalized its acquisition of Flight Options in late November, “negotiations seem to be going a little better,” he told AIN. However, the spokesman cautioned against making a direct link between these two events, asserting that the company’s renewed motivation is more likely inspired by pilot attrition.

Flight Options is currently losing about 10 pilots per month due to the drawn-out contract negotiations and the company’s ranking at the bottom of the payscale among the big-four fractional providers, says the union. Meanwhile, pilot recruitment appears to be suffering for the same reasons.

The fractional provider recently resumed hiring pilots after a nearly two-year hiatus, but the effort is progressing slowly. Of the eight pilots in a new-hire class last month, AIN was told, only five actually made it to simulator training.

According to the union spokes- man, one candidate changed his mind and quit before IOE training; another was fired for a PRIA (pilot records improvement act) problem; and the third was fired during indoc class for unspecified reasons. At press time, the union spokes-man didn’t know if any of the five remaining new hires completed simulator training.

Negotiation Update
The union spokesman is cautiously optimistic about the current state of contract negotiations, adding, “I don’t want to give Flight Options pilots any false hope, either; we’ve still got a ways to go. But we are making progress.” He told AIN that about 90 percent of the contract has been presented to Flight Options management, and both sides have tentatively agreed to about 80 percent.

However, it’s the last 20 percent that will be the most fertile for contention between the Flight Options pilots and management since negotiations are now getting into economic issues, traditionally a hot-button area in any contract talks. The good news is that face-to-face negotiations will ramp up in the next few months, going from the current once-per-month rate to two sessions next month and three each in May and June.

In the meantime, most of the Flight Options pilots are showing solidarity by refusing overtime and boycotting management’s “road shows.” By refusing overtime the pilots are magnifying the pilot shortage problem, pressuring management to step up talks and accede to some union demands.

The union spokesman said the reason behind the road-show boycott is to show solidarity by refusing to listen to company “propaganda” at the meetings and to reject individual negotiations instead of negotiations as a group.

In an e-mail to Flight Options pilots last month, CEO Michael Scheeringa told pilots that there needs to be “more communication, not less” and asked those pilots
in Dallas for flight training at SimuFlite to attend a February 11 meeting at the hotel where the pilots were staying. Of the 30 or so pilots in Dallas that day, only two showed up for the meeting, the spokesman told AIN.

Flight Options, as a policy, will not comment on ongoing pilot negotiations.