Global Jet Services, Inc., a 12-person, Connecticut-based maintenance training company, has launched a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against industry-dominant FlightSafety International over alleged anti-competitive practices. Global Jet president J.D. McHenry doesn't quote the privately owned company's annual sales, but says that "they would be a heck of a lot higher" if his big competitor would change its ways.
McHenry's complaint centers on the fact that FlightSafety and aircraft manufacturers have signed exclusive agreements under which FlightSafety provides the only approved flight and maintenance training for many airplane types. "We can see that for pilot training, where there's a huge investment in simulators," McHenry says, "but maintenance training is different." His company specializes in on-site training, where instructors can work with maintainers outside the classroom, on the customer's own airplanes, but McHenry has been repeatedly told by operators, FBOs and manufacturers that they can't go outside FlightSafety for any approved training.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the end of September, Global Jet Services' suit asks for damages and seeks to stop FlightSafety from bundling maintenance training into its contracts. Attorney Todd McGuire says that the suit is similar to recent successful actions against Microsoft, MasterCard and Visa, and that—under anti-trust law—Global Jet Services had no option but to go to court. "You can't just sit down with FlightSafety and talk about how to divide up the market," he says.
FlightSafety had not been reached for comment at press time, but has no legal obligation to respond to the suit as yet.
