The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has filed a temporary restraining order to compel Flexjet and Flight Options to the accept the union’s pilot seniority list and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement as a unified carrier, known as OneSky, the union said yesterday.

This filing intensifies the already contentious dispute between the IBT and the managements of Flexjet and Flight Options that comes as the companies lay the groundwork to transform Flight Options into a Part 135 charter operator, shift some fleets out of fractional operations and remove other aircraft from the collective fleets altogether. The results of these efforts will mean a downsizing of the pilot workforces.

Flexjet initially offered a voluntary separation package (VSP) for its pilots, who are not under a collective bargaining agreement. Flight Options management initially sought union approval to make a similar offer to its pilots, and when the IBT rejected that offer, went ahead with the offer anyway, against union wishes. The IBT has propsed a counter-offer, asking that 39 recently furloughed pilots receive a year’s pay while on layoff but need not terminate their employment as called for under the company's VSP offer.

In the request for the temporary restraining order, filed April 22, the union told the court that “the carrier announced unilateral implementation of a voluntary separation program that breached the [Railway Labor Act] status quo in order to decimate the union.” The union further asked for the rescission of any VSP agreements.

The temporary restraining order request followed a lawsuit that the union filed a few weeks earlier over the seniority list and request for a collective bargaining agreement. “It is unfortunate that we must continually resort to seeking relief from a federal judge to force the senior executives of Flight Options and Flexjet to comply with their contractual and legal obligations,” said David Bourne, director of the Teamsters Airline Division. “We are the legally recognized representatives of this group of pilots. The company needs to come to the table to negotiate and to honor the agreements they have made.”  At press time, the company had not yet provided AIN with a statement.