Pinnacle CEO: “We Need to Act Immediately”
Friday, January 20th, 2012Regional carrier Pinnacle has made no secret of the existence of its financial issues, and in December announced the creation of a new restructuring program. But Pinnacle CEO Sean Menke, who joined the company this past May after leaving Frontier in 2010, provided an update on the situation in a letter to employees that was filed with the SEC on Friday.
Menke’s message is incredibly clear, writing that: “on the current path, our financial position will continue to worsen at an alarming rate; we need to act immediately,” and latter adding that “we may ultimately conclude the best way for us to achieve our goal is to use the court-supervised Chapter 11 process.”
Menke attributes Pinnacle’s current challenges to the airline: a longer than expected integration, issues with a new integrated seniority list that came as a result of a new pilot deal, and most interestingly, the nature of its agreements with mainline carriers. Pinnacle cu