Former Co-Owner Says Flight Contract Illegally Terminated

You almost need a program to follow this one...

Seems Sacramento (CA)-based charter carrier Sky King is suing the NBA Kings. The airline, owned by former basketball team co-owner Greg Lukenbill, wants $8.2 million because the Kings -- the basketball team, that is -- wrongfully terminated its agreement to use Sky King -- the airline, not the team -- to fly the players from game to game.

Whew!

This whole mess started back in 1985, when Lukenbill, a Sacramento-area developer, helped bring the basketball team to town. In 1990, he started the airline Sky King to fly the team from city to city. But in 2000, the basketball team stopped flying Sky King and started using a charter set up by the NBA. The charter operation charges teams based on the total number of players from all teams it flies. In the season just ending, that charter contract was awarded to Pace Airlines of Winston-Salem (NC).

"Obviously there is a disagreement," said team attorney David Price, in an interview with the Sacramento Business Journal. Price said he'd seen only a draft of the suit. "The team wouldn't have terminated the contract several years ago if it didn't feel strongly that there was a nonperformance by Sky King."

Lukenbill, who filed suit against the team May 27th, didn't have a lot to say when a reporter called: "I don't want to know what the subject is, I have no comment, thank you much."

Sky King and the Sacramento Kings singed a contract in 1997 to fly the team around in a Boeing 737 for $1.2 million a year. The contract was extended in 1998 and was supposed to run out at the end of this month, according to the Sacramento Business Journal.

Then the team changed hands and the new owners told Lukenbill they wanted a different aircraft. There were letters -- nasty letters -- between new owner Geoff Petrie and Lukenbill. Sky King told the basketball franchise a new plane would cost an extra $400,000 a year. That's when Petrie started grumbling about safety, saying, "as you can appreciate, the Kings are very concerned because of the numerous technical or mechanical problems which the plane experienced over the past NBA season."

The lawsuit doesn't list any of those problems.

But in October 1999, the Sacramento Business Journal reports Petrie asked Lukenbill to have Sky King certified as a Part 121 operator to ensure safety and a high technical standard. He asked Sky King to appoint a safety director in accordance with Part 121. Lukenbill offered himself for the job. Petrie didn't like that. But the FAA named Lukenbill anyway and, as safety director, he told Petrie that he spent $6.5 million on beefing up safety standards.

Sky King was awarded its Part 121 certificate by the FAA in October, 2002. By that time, however, the team had found another carrier.

See ya in court.

FMI: www.nba.com/kings