Increasing size provides economies of scale for any business, but for fractional operators attaining “critical mass” in terms of fleet size and flight crews is essential to the model working at all. Profitability then depends on the details of pricing and cost control.
But as the number of employees increases, so too does the pressure to organize. NetJets is noteworthy for being the only fractional provider with its pilots in a union, Local 284 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Airline Division. NetJets aircraft technicians are also organized in Local 284. The flight attendants voted to join the same union in July 2001, after voting against joining in a previous election more than a year earlier that was preceded by what union officials called “as dirty and dishonest a union-busting campaign as airline industry observers had ever seen.”
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