April 18, 2014
Fellow Pilots,
Last week we received several inquires from pilots who wanted to know why every employee group at Flight Options and Flexjet, with the exception of the Flight Options pilots, had been granted access to the Company?s new web-based chat room, Yammer. Many of you also informed us you were told by Flexjet pilots you met on the road, who do have access to the Yammer message board, that management had informed them that the Union was responsible for preventing the Flight Options pilots from having access to Yammer.
Since this is of course untrue, I decided to contact members of senior management in an attempt to clear up any confusion that might have existed and to expressly request that access to Yammer be granted to the Flight Options pilots. After all, and I think all of you would agree, open communication and unity among all OneSky pilots both at Flight Options and Flexjet will be critical to avoiding misunderstandings between the two pilot groups going forward. I think this is especially important since we are currently in discussions with management about the future integration of both operations.
Regrettably, the request to give Flight Options pilots access to Yammer was denied, which is disappointing since I think Yammer is a forum well suited for dialogue between Flight Options pilots and Flexjet pilots. I suspect that management is interested in maintaining the current captive audience status of the Flexjet pilots on Yammer. They know the impending merger has raised a lot of questions and created a lot of anxiety in both groups. However in the case of the Flexjet pilots, who they know will be faced with a critical decision concerning Union representation in the not to distant future, they in essence have created an on-line information vacuum they can fill with their ideas to the exclusion of the views of fellow pilots at Flight Options. This begs the question, what exactly does management believe it has to say to Flexjet pilots that it cannot also say to Flight Options pilots in light of the stated intention to merge the two operations?
As you may recall from Kenn Ricci?s February 11, 2014 presentation to Flexjet and Flight Options employees, one of the PowerPoint slides stated, ?Exchange of information will help us all,? and then the very next slide went on state that Yammer would be implemented at Flight Options. Now, it is apparently more important to segregate what information is given to Flexjet pilots from what is given to Flight Options pilots than to foster unity between the two pilot groups. This is not the manner in which responsible companies ?build a culture of trust,? which was also a theme in Kenn?s presentation.
I expect that each of you will draw your own conclusions about management?s motivation in denying the request.
Fraternally,
