Rich pickings?

Berkshire Hathaway’s NetJets is looking for compensation and benefit cuts from more than 600 employees represented by the Teamsters Union. This is part of a plan aimed at lowering costs for its wealthy clientele. The Ohio-based business jet operator is owned by Warren Buffet’s holding company and currently provides business and leisure travel to some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

The Teamsters Union represents a range of NetJets staff, including flight attendants, aircraft mechanics, maintenance controllers, aircraft cleaners, aircraft refuelers, stock clerks and flight dispatchers.

NetJets’ stance is simple: it is trying to reduce the cost of aircraft operations for its clients. However, to fund this, it is attempting to gain concessions from its workforce, and this has proved the sticking point since the plan was first mooted, almost four years ago.

To try and placate the parties involved, the federal government recently appointed a mediator. However, as a result of NetJets’ bargaining demands, little progress has actually been made in negotiations covering other unionized employees, including those who perform safety functions for the company, such as aircraft maintenance and flight dispatching.

Purchase agreement to be signed this month

The North America-based management team of the Liquip Aviation division, together with the Alfons Haar Group, has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to buy the assets of Beta Fluid Systems from the McAleese Group of Australia. The transaction is expected to close on October 31.

“The objective for our management team was to partner with a company that aligns with our commitment to reliability, support and delivery, and also demonstrates a culture of long term investment in product innovation. Our partnership with Alfons Haar meets all of these objectives,” commented Jon DeLine, President of Liquip’s Aviation division. “They are an exciting addition to our business who gives us access to technology that provides an increased value to our customers.”

“This partnership allows Alfons Haar to invest alongside a high performance team that is growing in regions and segments of the market that are a perfect fit for Alfons Haar and our fueling components,” added Thomas Haar, Managing Partner of Alfons Haar. “Customers across the Americas will still have the great reliability and support they have today in BETA, coupled with highly innovative options from Alfons Haar in the near future.”

While a number of Alfons Haar components are available in the Americas today, the group will be working to introduce a suite of solutions to the region that have only been available hitherto outside of the region.

Airline merger triumphant

On October 20 American Airlines and US Airways reached a significant milestone in their merger as their cargo divisions finally combined under a single air waybill. The new entity currently brings in more than US$800m each year and moves more than 1bn pounds of freight and mail annually.

The cargo teams have successfully combined 154 facilities and have been harmonizing products since December 2013, making it the first operations division at the airline to become fully integrated.

Signature adds to its FBO network

Signature Flight Support, a BBA Aviation company, has agreed to acquire the FBO assets of Wiggins Airways from Ameriflight at Manchester–Boston Regional airport in Manchester, New Hampshire. The transaction is expected to close before the end of this month.
Signature Manchester, New Hampshire will provide FBO services to include fuel and ramp servicing, de-icing and anti-icing, passenger and crew services as well as charter handling. The campus consists of a passenger terminal and three hangars that total around 87,000 square feet and which are capable of housing large cabin business aircraft. The facility operates its own fuel farm for Jet-A, AvGas, automotive fuel and diesel.