Delta Air Lines subsidiary Comair said Friday that President Fred Buttrell has resigned from the regional airline that is in the middle of a dispute with flight attendants over contract concessions its say it needs to emerge from bankruptcy.
The company said chief financial officer Don Bornhorst will replace Buttrell.
Last month, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge has rejected Comair's request to throw out its contract with its 970 flight attendants so it can impose $8.9 million in wage cuts and other savings. The judge ordered both sides to resume negotiations.
Comair has said it must have the concessions as part of a plan to cut $42 million in annual costs. Unions representing pilots and mechanics have agreed to concessions, but those deals are contingent on the flight attendants accepting cuts as well.
Buttrell joined Comair in January 2005. Bornhorst, 41, is a Comair veteran with 15 years of airline industry experience. He has held leadership positions in every operating department at the airline and has been its CFO since 2005. The two men were announcing the change Friday morning in meetings with employees, spokeswoman Kate Marx said. Buttrell said he felt it was time for new leadership, Marx said.
Comair, based in Erlanger, Ky., near Cincinnati, filed for bankruptcy protection along with Delta Air Lines Inc. last year. Comair is a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlanta-based Delta and has 6,400 employees. It operates 871 flights daily to about 108 cities.
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