Crash a Blow for Struggling Comair
Monday August 28, 1:01 am ET
By Dan Sewell, AP Business Writer
Fatal Crash of Jet in Kentucky Is Emotional Blow for Comair, Trying to Emerge From Bankruptcy
ERLANGER, Ky. (AP) -- The fatal crash of a Comair regional jet Sunday morning dealt an emotional blow to a commuter airline trying to emerge from bankruptcy.
"These are tough things and it's very difficult," Comair president Don Bornhorst said at a briefing in a hotel near Comair headquarters in northern Kentucky. Choking up at times, Bornhorst said he was "emotionally devastated" and said he's certain all of Comair's 6,400 employees share those feelings.
Bornhorst, a 15-year aviation industry veteran, pledged that the carrier would do all it could to help with the investigation of the crash while also keeping up normal operations.
"We all recognize that we're professionals in an industry that has these risks, and you hope and pray that these things do not happen, but when they do, the team we have at Comair is one that will work through this," said Bornhorst, who was promoted from chief financial officer to president three months ago. "We will continue to offer service to our passengers, we will do it in a certainly safe manner and with the customer service emphasis that we have always had with our flights."
Comair, a Delta Air Lines Inc. subsidiary that offers 850 flights daily to 110 cities, last suffered a crash Jan. 9, 1997, when an Embrarer 120 flying from Cincinnati to Detroit crashed in icy conditions near Monroe, Mich., killing all 29 people on board.
The carrier now flies all Bombardier CRJ's, most of them 50-passenger planes. Its 168-plane fleet also includes some 40-seaters and 70-seaters. The plane that crashed Sunday was a 50-passenger plane Comair said it bought new from Bombardier, a Montreal-based company, in January 2001. Bornhorst said the plane had "a clean maintenance record."
Bombardier has about 1,300 of the regional jets flying for a variety of carriers worldwide.
Like its parent, Atlanta-based Delta, Comair filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2005 and has been restructuring. Both hope to emerge from bankruptcy by next summer.
Comair has been seeking concessions from its unions, and last week reported some progress after two days of negotiations with its flight attendants.
The carrier wants $7.9 million in pay and benefit cuts and work rule changes from its 970 flight attendants. A federal bankruptcy judge in July ruled that the company could void its contract, but Comair has been trying to work out an agreement. Flight attendants had said they would consider job actions if negotiations failed.
Comair earlier reached agreements with its pilots for $17.3 million in cuts and for $1 million from its mechanics, but those deals were contingent on Comair getting $8.9 million in givebacks from flight attendants. Comair met with both of those unions in early August after reducing the amount needed from the flight attendants, but neither Comair nor the unions would discuss their talks.
Comair also had to rebound from a Christmas 2004 holiday weekend debacle, in which a computer system failure forced cancellation of more than 1,000 flights.
Comair was founded in 1977 as a three-plane commuter airline and became a Delta partner in 1984 and a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000.
Delta CEO Gerald Grinstein said Sunday his company was offering Comair any help it needs in the crash aftermath.