Delta Airlines
MORE... “FLYING WITH THE BANKRUPTCY BUZZARDS”
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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July 26, 2007
NTSB faults pilots
in Comair crash
By Alan Levine, USA Today
WASHINGTON — Two pilots of a Comair regional jet that crashed last year in Kentucky after taking off from the wrong runway overlooked numerous signs that should have prevented the accident, federal accident investigators concluded Thursday.
Comair Flight 5191 crashed in a fireball a short distance from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky., shortly before dawn on Aug. 27. The impact and fire killed 49 of the 50 people aboard, making it the deadliest accident in the USA since 2001.
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LIABILITY: NTSB to discuss the cause of Kentucky crash
~ ~ ~
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ruled that the pilots of the Bombardier CRJ-100 caused the crash by overlooking ample cues. The runways and taxiways were marked with large lighted signs. The runway numbers were painted on the ground. And the short runway they used was completely dark, in contrast to the correct runway nearby, which was lighted.
The board members and staff investigators said they struggled for months to explain how two competent pilots and the tower controller who cleared the jet for takeoff could make such obvious mistakes.
"The 'aha!' moment remains elusive for us," said board member Debbie Hersman. "This accident has led us into the briar patch of human behavior."
One likely explanation was 40 seconds of inattention by Capt. Jeffrey Clay and co-pilot James Polehinke, the only survivor, as they taxied toward the runway, the board said. The two talked about seeking other jobs, the type of chatter that is prohibited by federal rules during critical portions of a flight.
The board also ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration contributed by not requiring stricter standards for how planes must taxi. Investigators criticized the controller for turning his back to perform administrative tasks. But, in a divided vote, the five-member board decided the controller's actions did not contribute directly to the crash.
July 26, 2007
NTSB to discuss the
cause of Kentucky crash
USA Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — Numerous liability lawsuits stemming from last summer's crash of Comair Flight 5191 in Kentucky may hinge on where the National Transportation Safety Board lays blame.
Federal investigators also were expected to recommend ways to prevent such accidents. Interim findings by the NTSB, which began meeting Thursday morning to discuss the accident, focused on how the jetliner ended up on a runway too short for takeoff by commercial aircraft.
Forty-nine of the 50 people aboard died in the crash on Aug. 27, 2006, at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.
No witnesses were expected to be called at the NTSB meeting, and the only discussion planned was to be between the five board members and their staff.
Commuter airline Comair has acknowledged at least some culpability. Pilots violated cockpit rules about extraneous conversation as they were going through their preflight checklist and may have been distracted as they steered the jet in the pre-dawn darkness onto the wrong runway.
Unclear is whether anyone beyond Comair will share blame from the government.
About 25 relatives of crash victims gathered at a hotel in downtown Lexington on Thursday to watch a video link to the hearing. Melissa Byrd, whose brother, Ryan, died in the crash, said it has been "a very long year" and she didn't expect any surprises at the hearing.
"Honestly, at this point, we don't care who's to blame," Byrd said.
Anita Threet, whose husband, Greg, was killed in the crash said a comprehensive report that tells how and why the crash happened might help her family move forward.
"The more information we get, it does help," she said.
Comair contends that the government itself (a.k.a. US Taxpayers) — specifically the Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the control tower at Blue Grass Airport — also is partly responsible. At the time of the crash, only one controller staffed the tower, despite an FAA directive that at least two should keep watch.
Also under scrutiny is a construction project at the airport that altered the taxiway route just a week before the crash. Airport officials insist the project complied with FAA guidelines, but the updated route didn't appear in a manual carried by Comair pilots and wasn't broadcast over the tower's audio system to pilots that morning.
One lawsuit filed by a victim's family makes a case against manufacturer Bombardier, suggesting that the plane should have been better suited to withstand flames. Autopsies showed that as many as 16 passengers inhaled smoke, suggesting they survived the impact but not the fire that followed.
The crash of the Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 marked the end of what had been called the safest period in aviation history in the United States. There hadn't been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people, including five on the ground.
December 31, 2006
From the Alex Constantine blogspot:
David P. Beiter at the Marijuana Library has compliled an inventory of narcotics smuggling, drug-dealing politicians and law enforcement officials in Kentucky in the 1990s. This is an excerpt, dealing largely with Lexington and environs, of a comprehensive survey. See David Beiter's site for more.
Entries like this are common: "Frankfort State Police arrested nine criminals who were accused of importing crack from New York City. The operation was run from an apartment complex next to the State Police Headquarters. This gang supposedly supplied most of the crack in Lexington. ... "
Sally Denton's Bluegrass Conspiracy should have been a blow to The Company, routed the deep corruption in the political establishment of the commonwealth, but it has been completely ignored by the Kentucky justice system and press. Denton only reported on a small corner of the corruption, the Lexington scene (with Adnan Khashoggi at its core) and the so-called "Company" still thrives in horse country.
Small-time marijunana growers receive stiff prison sentences, while the officials who are behind the scourge of heroin, cocaine and the gamut of hard drugs RUN THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY unperturbed.
The latest wrinkle is an influx of amphetamines spreading across Kentucky from west to east, originating in California. The CIA-driven Company runs the state these days – a confederacy of "patriotic" dunces, and Kentuckians actually buy the vacant rhetoric on gay marriage, etc., and vote these lunatics into office.
Obviously something must be done about the educational system down there. "This is soap – USE it. This is toilet paper – USE it ... "
– AC
By David P Beiter
http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/LOCLAXN.html
For more, GO TO > > > An Octopus Named Wackenhut
September 5, 2006
2004 memo warned of staffing
problems at Lexington airport
By Jeffrey McMurray, The Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Nearly two years before the fatal crash of Comair Flight 5191, a control tower supervisor at the Lexington airport reported staff shortages in the tower that “can cost lives.”
According to a safety memo filed in September 2004 and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, the supervisor reported the airport’s radar system wasn’t working properly but that the air traffic manager refused to call in a mechanical specialist because it would mean paying two hours of overtime.
The memo went on to say the tower was “short staffed, a low priority to the powers above us who would spend their efforts solving the problems of” larger airports in Louisville and Cincinnati.
“Those types of poorly thought out decisions can cost lives,” said the supervisor, who made the report anonymously through a NASA system used by tower operators and pilots to list safety concerns, which are ultimately relayed to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Investigators are looking into staffing at the Lexington control tower, among other things, as a possible contributing factor to the Aug. 27 crash that killed 49 of 50 people on board.
The plane headed down a runway too short to make a proper takeoff, but the lone tower operator — who got only two hours of sleep between shifts — had turned his back to do administrative work. According to FAA guidelines, two control tower operators should have been working at the time.
Since the crash, the FAA has put two tower operators on the overnight shift in Lexington.
“The anonymous report from 2004 appears to express concern about maintenance technicians, not air traffic controllers. We don’t have a staff problem in general at control towers,” said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.
Victor Santore, Southern region vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the memo proves that staffing complaints aren’t just coming from rank-and-file controllers seeking more overtime pay.
“The FAA just characterizes it as union rhetoric, but here you have a member of management trying to warn someone that the facility is short-staffed, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” Santore said.
Although radar equipment problems haven’t been listed as a possible cause of the Kentucky crash, former Blue Grass airport control tower operator Scott Zoeckler said the supervisor’s report is evidence of staffing neglect.
The specific radar element listed as inoperable serves a major safety component, he said.
“You’re sitting there looking at airplanes, and all of a sudden you have nothing to see,” Zoeckler said. “It’s about the scariest event you can have. Lexington is going to become the window to which the country sees the problem staffing is having on the entire system.”
August 30, 2006
FAA broke policy at
airport
Only one air traffic controller was on duty before crash
By Mark Pitsch, James R. Carroll and Tom Loftus
The Federal Aviation Administration violated its policy by having only one Lexington air traffic controller on duty to direct Comair Flight 5191 before it crashed, an official said yesterday.
The controller at Blue Grass Airport was performing two jobs Sunday when he cleared the jet for takeoff.
He told investigators he wasn't watching as the plane mistakenly left on a runway that was too short for the plane's size and weight, an official said.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown declined to say whether the lack of two controllers might have played a role in the crash, which killed 49 of the 50 people aboard. She said the tower now will have two controllers at all times.
When officials learned after the crash that the policy hadn't been followed, "they directed the facility manager to ensure that a minimum of two controllers are on duty at all times -- one for radar operations and one for surface operations," Brown told The Courier-Journal.
Also yesterday, a National Transportation Safety Board investigation said:
The controller cleared the plane for takeoff but was performing administrative duties and did not watch it.
The controller told investigators the pilot was not disoriented or confused, although the crew initially boarded the wrong plane.
Comair crew members had not flown at the airport since it changed the path that they should have taken to get to the appropriate runway.
The regional jet was trying to get airborne about 6:10 a.m. before it sheared off a fence and trees and crashed.
Relatives are scheduled to visit the crash scene today for a private tour and then attend a private memorial.
Policy broken
Since Nov. 16, 2005, the FAA has required two controllers in all towers on all shifts, Brown said.
A Nov. 16 document from the Lexington tower's air traffic manager, obtained by The Courier-Journal, says that "our staffing rarely allows for a second controller to be assigned to the midshift," or the midnight shift.
The manager wrote that the FAA was "requiring that facilities separate the radar function from the tower function."
The radar function involves controlling the landing and departure of planes out to about 40 miles from the tower.
The tower function focuses on controlling ground traffic at the airport, including airport vehicles, providing clearances to aircraft to taxi, and giving updated weather data to flight crews.
Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said the union has pushed for a minimum of two controllers since 1993 because one is not safe.
"You have to have that redundancy," Church said. "What if you have to go to the bathroom? What if you get sick? What if an accident happens and you need somebody to relieve you?"
The Blue Grass tower has 19 controllers assigned to it to cover all shifts -- 17 experienced controllers and two trainees, Church said.
Mike Overly, editor of AVSIG.com, an online aviation safety forum hosted by the Aviation Safety Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Worthington, Ohio, said tower staffing may be a factor in the accident, but not the only one.
Overly agreed that having two controllers makes operations safer.
"A lot of guys have their heads down on their computers. ... Having somebody who can look out the window is good," he said.
Kathleen Bergen, external communications manager for the FAA's Southern Region, said the airport had two controllers on duty on weekend overnight shifts until four or five months ago, when air traffic dropped to the point where only one was needed.
Controller didn't watch takeoff
Yesterday, National Transportation Safety Board investigators interviewed the controller who was on duty Sunday morning.
The controller said he had a "clear, unobstructed" view of the runway, said Debbie Hersman, an NTSB member.
He told investigators that he cleared the flight for takeoff on Runway 22, the longer runway, and then turned his back to perform administrative duties as the plane taxied, Hersman said.
"He said the last time he saw the aircraft was on the taxiway on the way to the runway," Hersman said.
He then heard an explosion, she said. "At that point he realized there was an accident," she said.
Asked if the controller should have watched the aircraft take off, Hersman said, "The decisions about what needs to be done and what needs to be changed, that's all a part of the NTSB analysis."
The FAA's Bergen said the FAA would not comment on that question.
Robert Spragg, a former Marine Corps pilot and a New York lawyer who specializes in aviation accident litigation, said the FAA's Air Traffic Control Manual says a controller shall visually scan the runways "to the maximum extent possible."
"That gives a loophole for a controller to tend to other things commanding his attention," Spragg said.
He said it is unclear whether a second controller would have mattered. "What should shed a lot of light on that will be the transcript of the conversation between the tower and the pilots," Spragg said.
Hersman said she couldn't describe the controller's work history over the previous 24 hours.
Bergen declined to say how many hours the controller had worked before the crash. She said the FAA will not release the name of the controller...
August 27, 2006
Crash comes amid Comair bankruptcy
By Dan Blake, The Courier-Journal
Sunday's Comair crash came as the Erlanger, Ky.-based airline was making progress negotiating better deals with its unions and creditors in bankruptcy court.
After striking new deals with its pilots and mechanics, the company is trying to get $7.9 million in savings, including pay cuts, from its flight attendants. Comair’s cost-saving deals with pilots and maintenance workers only take effect if it can get concessions from its 970 flight attendants.
Comair and the Teamsters, which represents its flight attendants, reported progress in the talks last week.
The airline has 6,400 employees and operates 850 flights daily to 108 cities. It filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of Delta’s bankruptcy filing on Sept. 14, 2005.
Delta reported a $4.3 billion loss in the first six months of the year, nearly triple its loss in the first half of 2005. Delta did not break out Comair’s finances.
Bankruptcy protection is intended to allow companies a chance to streamline their operations and negotiate better terms with creditors. By operating in bankruptcy court, the company doesn’t have to pay many of the bills that piled up before the filing.
Delta put pressure on Comair to revise its cost structure last week by inviting Comair and others to bid to fly Delta regional routes. While Comair is owned by Delta, it will have to compete with outside carriers in bidding for the work.
Other airlines have had recent financial trouble.
Northwest Airlines filed for bankruptcy last year, the same day that Delta filed. It had a $65 million pension payment that it couldn’t miss unless it was in Chapter 11.
ATA and United Airlines finished their bankruptcy reorganizations in February.
Hawaiian Airlines left bankruptcy protection in June 2005 and US Airways exited almost a year ago after receiving approval to merge with America West.
Passengers probably won’t become skittish about flying a bankrupt carrier, said Michael Boyd, president of aviation consultants The Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo.
“We’re so immune to the term ‘bankruptcy.’ It hasn’t translated into maintenance sloppiness,” he said Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration is permitted to give closer scrutiny to maintenance practices at bankrupt airlines, but it wasn’t clear yesterday whether the government had done so with Comair.
MEET M. MICHELLE BURNS
M. Michele Burns, age 50, is chairwoman and chief executive officer of Mercer. Ms. Burns joined MMC as executive vice president on March 1, 2006, assumed the position of chief financial officer of MMC on March 31, 2006 and moved to her current position with Mercer on September 25, 2006.
Prior to joining MMC, Ms. Burns was executive vice president and chief financial officer since May 2004, and chief restructuring officer, and chief financial officer since August 2004, of Mirant Corporation, an energy company, following the company’s bankruptcy filing in 2003.
Prior to joining Mirant, she was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Delta Air Lines, Inc. from August 2000 to April 2004. She held various other positions in the finance and tax departments of Delta beginning in January 1999. Delta filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in September 2005.
M. Michelle Burns, currently a director of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc., she previously served as executive vice president.
For Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.:
Cash Compensation (FY December 2006)
Salary: $625,000
Bonus: $750,000
Latest FY other long-term comp. $945,832
Total: $2,320,832
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From wikipedia:
WAL-MART
Financial
In 2006, Wal-Mart was 67th most profitable corporation (profits divided by total revenue), behind retailers Home Depot, Dell, and Target, and ahead of Costco and Kroger. For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart reported a net income of $12.178 billion on $344.992 billion of sales revenue (3.5% profit margin). For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart's international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales. As of Mar 06, 2008, net sales for the 4-week period ending Feb 29, 2008 was $29.1 billion, up 8.9% from the previous year's results.
Governance
Wal-Mart is governed by a fifteen-member Board of Directors, which is elected annually by shareholders. S. Robson Walton, the eldest son of founder Sam Walton, serves as Chairman of the Board. Lee Scott, the Chief Executive Officer, serves on the board as well. Other members of the board include Aída Álvarez, James Breyer, M. Michele Burns, James Cash, Roger Corbett, Douglas N. Daft, David Glass, Roland A. Hernandez, Allen Questrom, Jack Shewmaker, Jim Walton, Christopher J. Williams, and Linda S. Wolf.
Notable former members of the board include Hillary Clinton (1985–1992) and Tom Coughlin (2003–2004), the latter having served as Vice Chairman. Clinton left the board before the 1992 U.S. Presidential Election, and Coughlin left in December 2005 after pleading guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wal-Mart. On August 11, 2006, he was sentenced to 27 months of home confinement, five years of probation, and ordered to pay $411,000 in restitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart
June 19, 2006
Underfunded Pensions Leave Delta Airlines Pilots in the Lurch on Lump Sums
It’s Bad Business
It doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out that corporate pensions are going the way of the buggy whip. I'm a post-baby boomer, and so pensions (and Social Security) don't mean much to me. I never consider them in my retirement planning and if they ever do materialize, I figure they'll pay for a Starbucks latte.
Folks a few years ahead of me though, are approaching their 50's and 60's and are far more likely to be building entire retirement scenarios around pensions plans. Delta Airlines, it seems, is just one of the latest companies to have to tell its long term employees that they failed to fund their plan adequately. This time, to the tune of over 10 BILLION dollars.
Over 6000 Delta airline pilots will not be eligible to receive the highly desireable lump sum option and many will have to take pensions quite a bit less than expected. It's back to the calculators for those already, or soon to be retired.
Sounds like a rough landing.
Know More: Broken Promises, Delta Airlines, Mistreating Employees, Underfunded Pensions
http://www.itsbadbusiness.com/delta_airlines/
For even more, GO TO > > > The Great Nest Egg Robberies
June 17, 2006
Delta asks to cut pilot pensions
By RUSSELL GRANTHAM, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Delta Air Lines says it plans to seek bankruptcy court approval to scrap its traditional pension plan for pilots, a change that would cap a dramatic overhaul of pilot compensation at the carrier.
In a widely expected move, Delta said Friday it will tell the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. on Monday that it plans to terminate the pilot pension plan, shifting responsibility for further benefit payouts to the quasi-federal agency.
Delta's bankruptcy judge would have to approve the idea, and the pension agency or other parties could object in court.
But Delta's pilots union has already agreed not to oppose the change as part of a new concessionary contract ratified last month.
Delta says it is still considering whether to also seek termination of a larger plan covering ground employees and flight attendants.
Ailing companies such as Delta with underfunded pension plans can use termination to avoid the huge cash outlays needed to fully fund the plans, which are then closed down. Companies then usually switch to cheaper, 401(k)-style plans going forward — a change Delta has already put in place for pilots.
Delta's traditional pilot plan, which was underfunded by $1.8 billion as of a year ago, covers about 13,000 current or retired pilots or dependents.
Terminating the plan "remains a very difficult and regrettable course of action," said Delta spokesman Anthony Black. "It ... would not be taken if the survival of the company wasn't at stake."
In Delta's $280 million-a-year concession deal with the Air Line Pilots Association, reached in April, the union agreed not to oppose the airline's efforts to terminate the plan. In exchange, Delta agreed to give pilots a $650 million IOU after the airline emerges from bankruptcy as partial compensation for pilots' loss of benefits.
The new contract also extended a 14 percent pay cut, which on top of a bigger cut in 2004 has almost halved some pilot wage rates over the past 20 months.
While wages are clear-cut, the economic effect of a pension termination on pilots is harder to assess because the system is complex and varies by individual circumstance.
The pension agency guarantees benefit payouts after a plan is terminated, but only up to caps that fall far short of typical pilot benefits. The cap is about $47,000 a year for full retirees but substantially less for early retirees. Pilots must retire at 60.
However, in recent years Delta pilots have been able to take half their accrued benefits in a lump sum, reducing their dependence on monthly payments. Lump sums in many cases were about $1 million.
Retired pilots have already taken a hit as Delta restructures. Shortly after Delta filed for bankruptcy in late 2005 it stopped sending monthly pension checks for a portion of pilot retiree pay that was outside the traditional pension plan.
George Leatherbury, a 61-year-old retired Delta pilot, said his annual pension dropped from nearly $80,000 to about $25,000. He thinks it will drop to about $15,000 if the pension agency takes over the pilots' plan....
Delta's action does not affect its other pension plan for about 91,000 current and retired ground workers, flight attendants and other nonpilot employees. However, last week Delta warned that it is running out of time to get legislative relief from Congress before it may decide to terminate that plan, too.
Delta and other carriers want legislation giving them as much as 20 years to fully fund their pension plans. Delta says it would have a better chance of saving the nonpilot plan with such an extension, but that there are no guarantees....
Other airlines including United and US Airways have terminated pension plans while in Chapter 11 restructuring as a way to prevent the cash outlays needed to fully fund their plans....
The Atlantic Journal-Constitution
$ $ $
June 7, 2006
Delta’s Bankruptcy Costs Mount
By Russell Grantham, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The employees at Giuliani Capital Advisors have put in a lot of hours working on Delta Air Lines’ bankruptcy.
Eight of the Wall Street firm’s employees billed the carrier for 5,955.7 hours during the first 21 weeks of the Atlanta Airline’s Chapter 11 case. The firm, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s boutique investment banking company, said one associate worked 988 hours. That works out to an average of seven-plus hours a day, including Saturdays, Sundays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
Add a couple of dozen hours billed by a few other employees and $55,776 in hotel bills, airfare and other expenses, and you’re getting to some real money: $1,855,776.
That total was among $41.4 million in fees and expenses that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Adlai Hardin approved this week to be paid to lawyers and other professionals for the first half of Delta’s 8 ½ month-old Chapter 11 case.
That’s enough money to pay the annual salaries of 1,165 of Delta senior flight attendants or about 700 senior mechanics.
Still, it’s only a drop in the bucket compared with what Delta may eventually pay out to an army of lawyers, investment bankers and other professionals if its restructuring drags on like United Airlines’ did. United paid out more than $300 million on such fees over three years before emerging from Chapter 11 earlier this year.
Delta spokeswoman Gina Laughlin said the airline’s professional and legal expenses are “commensurate with large and complex bankruptcy cases.” She said Delta’s advisers helped the carrier make “a lot of progress in those months,” such as securing loans to finance its restructuring....
Delta has been paying Giuliani Capital Advisors $400,000 a month, plus expenses, to help with tasks such as forecasting cash levels and advising the carrier on how much money other bankrupt airlines have spent on professional fees.
But the top law firms handling Delta’s overall case and legal dealings with its pilots union and aircraft lessors and lenders have collected far larger billings. The court approved $10.9 million in payments to Delta’s lead law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell.
The compensation approved Monday excludes an additional $2.04 million requested by other firms and $195,000 the judge has held back from the airline’s auditor, Deloitte & Touche LLP, The Associated Press reported.
Also on Monday, Hardin denied a request by Delta’s bankruptcy trustee that an independent financial adviser be appointed to review Delta’s legal and professional expenses. The trustee argued that Delta had been charged more than $43 million in legal and professional fees in just four months, with little time to review expenses the heat of its restructuring.
However, the judge said hiring an independent examiner to review the bills would violate attorney-client privilege and boost Delta’s bankruptcy expenses, the AP reported.
$ $ $
March 21, 2006
Delta Seeks to Void 93 Million Employee Stock Options
ATLANTA — Delta Air Lines Inc., which is operating under bankruptcy protection, asked a judge Monday to allow the nation's third-largest carrier to void roughly 93 million stock options held by 70,000 current and former employees and directors.
The Atlanta-based company said the options, if exercised, would provide little to no real value, making the $305,000 a year it costs the airline to maintain, account for and administer the benefit an unnecessary burden on Delta.
The company's motion says the request has the support of the creditors committee in its bankruptcy case and the Air Line Pilots Association, the union that represents holders of roughly one-third of the options Delta is seeking to reject...
Also Monday, Delta's chief financial officer, Edward Bastian, said it's possible flight bookings in April and May are being affected by a strike threat by Delta's pilots....
Shares of a company in bankruptcy protection generally become worthless. Delta has said it expects to emerge from Chapter 11 by the summer of 2007.
"We didn't oppose the motion to void the stock options because they were worthless once management forced the company into bankruptcy anyway," the chairman of the pilots union's executive committee, Lee Moak, said Monday.
Excluded from Delta's motion to reject are the roughly 2.5 million forfeited options that are to be distributed to Delta pilots in November based on a prior agreement; the roughly 7.1 million options originally awarded to non-pilots under a non-pilot option plan and subsequently forfeited; and the 1 million warrants issued on Dec. 23, 2005, related to a settlement in a class action lawsuit.
Meanwhile, hearings continued Monday in Washington before an arbitration panel that will decide whether to allow Delta to void its contract with its pilots so it can impose up to $325 million in long-term pay and benefit cuts....
At the hearings, the union continued to make its case for the stressful and unique character of the job of commercial airline pilot. Company lawyers sparred with union experts who testified over details of the pilots' defined-benefit pension plan and how much the company would save if it terminates the plan.
The pilots previously gave Delta $1 billion in annual concessions in a five-year deal in 2004.
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188605,00.html
# # #
MORE TO COME
Meanwhile, you can peruse through more bankruptcy buzzard poop by flying to....
Bankruptcy Buzzards in The Boyd Group
Conseco: Birds in the Trailer Park
Confessions of a Whistleblower
The Eagle Hooded: The 9-11 Coverup
Marsh & McLennan: The Marsh Birds
The Office of the U.S. Trustee vs. Harmon
P-s-s-t, wanna buy a good audit?
And, for Sidney Skolnick’s excellent series entitled
The Bankruptcy Bordello, see...
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord-1.html
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord2.html
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord.html
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord4.html
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord5.html
www.skolnicksreport.com/bankbord6.html
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Last Update March 16, 2008, by The Catbird