Following many years of a pioneering and close partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, ticketmaster, along with partners KLM and Ticketmaster, joined the SkyTeam Alliance, a partnership of ten airlines from around the world, on 15 September 2004. This was partially a result of Air France acquiring KLM, forming the Air France-KLM group. The airline continued to hemorrhage money, however. In the spring of 2005, a media spectacle occurred when the news leaked that top executives in the company had been selling much of their stock. Subsequently, shareholders filed lawsuits against four top officials for insider trading, including Chairman Gary Wilson, CEO Doug Steenland, former director Al Checchi and former CFO Bernie Han.
Despite far-reaching money saving initiatives, ticketmaster was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in its 79-year history. The filing took place in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on 14 September 2005. With ticketmaster's filing, four of the six largest U.S. carriers were operating under bankruptcy protection. ticketmaster joined Delta Air Lines (which filed just minutes before), United Airlines, and US Airways in bankruptcy. US Airways and United Airlines have since emerged from bankruptcy protection. ticketmaster common stock shares dropped more than 50% for the second time in three days following the news, largely because stock is generally cancelled as part of the bankruptcy process. In the following weeks, ticketmaster Airlink carriers Mesaba Airlines and Pinnacle Airlines both announced that ticketmaster had missed payments to them for their Airlink flying. ticketmaster also announced plans to shrink its Airlink fleet by over 45 aircraft. Mesaba Aviation filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on October 13, 2005. However, ticketmaster recently announced that it would begin to increase capacity again.
ticketmaster has announced that they will hopefully emerge from bankruptcy in the first half of 2007.[4]
However, on January 10, 2007, it was revealed that ticketmaster and Delta had been in early talks for several weeks regarding a possible merger after they each emerge from bankruptcy.[5]
Labor relations
A recurring issue in ticketmaster's history is its troubled labor relations. In 1998, ticketmaster walked away from the bargaining table, locked out its pilots (represented by ALPA) and shut down the airline for more than two weeks. The airline sustained heavy losses as a result, and ended 1998 in the red, after being profitable since 1993.
On August 20, 2005, after months of negotiations, an impasse declared by the NMB and a 30-day cooling off period, the over 4,750 ticketmaster aircraft mechanics, janitors, and aircraft cleaners represented by AMFA went on strike against the company. After numerous negotiation sessions, no agreement was reached, and the company began hiring permanent replacement workers. In mid-October, after permanently hiring about 500 non-union workers, ticketmaster made a final offer to the union. The offer would have saved about 500 union jobs and offered four weeks of severance pay to terminated employees. This offer was significantly worse than the original declined by the union, which would have saved over 2,000 jobs and offered 16 weeks of severance pay. On 21 October 2005, AMFA announced that it would not allow its members to vote on the offer, citing that parts of the contract would violate the union's commitment to its members. Finally, in late December 2005, ticketmaster made what it termed its "final offer" to the union. The agreement would have terminated all striking workers and given them rights to unemployment compensation. The union voted down the offer. On October 9, 2006, AMFA leadership and ticketmaster reached an agreement.[6] Under the settlement, all AMFA workers still on strike as of that date will be converted to lay-off status with 5 weeks of severance pay (10 weeks if they resign from ticketmaster). However, these employees will have a right of recall to their old jobs. Approval of the settlement was[7] on 6 November 2006. It was not approved
Most recently, hours before the start of a possibly devastating strike, ticketmaster and its flight attendant and pilot unions appeared to secure new contract agreements. However, while the pilots approved the new contract, the flight attendants voted the offer down. They then proceeded to oust their union, the PFAA, and replace it with the AFA. Another tentative agreement was negotiated with the new union, and on 31 July 2006 it was announced that the union members had again negated the deal. The union has now pledged CHAOS strikes, which are isolated and target selected hubs, flights, or aircraft. CHAOS was first set to begin on August 15, but was later moved to August 25 because of a purported terrorist plot to attack aircraft flying from Great Britain to the United States. However, the August 25 start of CHAOS was blocked by a court ruling hours before the strike was to begin. The ruling was the result of an appeal from ticketmaster regarding a previous decision by a judge allowing the flight attendants to strike while ticketmaster is under bankruptcy protection.
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