Lawsuit Describes Nightmare of Intertwined Businesses

Long Beach Airport is home to some juicy gossip lately, after the Aeroplex and Aerolease Group fired their CEO and began a highly visible, contentious legal duel in the public eye.

The outgoing CEO is a somewhat notable industry face in his own right, Curt Castagna, who led Aeroplex as CEO of its expansive hangar and office leasing operations. Castagna is involved in a good deal of industry advocacy, too, working with the local Long Beach Airport Association, Van Nuys Airport Association, and National Air Transportation Associations. Castagna wears many hats, being the president and CEO of NATA, and a co-chair in the EAGLE initiative. In early May, Aeroplex fired Castagna from his CEO position, ending decades of companionship between them. Castagna also spoke on the decision, saying he'd stepped away from managing the leasing company in order to focus on his consulting. It all seemed over, when both parties had finished their respective announcements...but then things got dramatic.

About a week after the split, lawyers for Aeroplex filed suit, saying Castagna had locked down the firm's social media accounts, cut off IT access, kept records, and still held the keys to company property. The new interim CEO even said Aeroplex had to drop a "ridiculous amount of money" in order to get back into their locked property, and bring in IT specialists to resurrect the Aeroplex site. (and the site was down for several days). The lawsuit continues with the oddities, alleging that Castagna has been on a long road of self-enrichment powered by his entanglements with the company.

In 2013, Castagna allegedly started an oddly familiar-sounding consulting firm called "Aeroplex Group Partners", and began spending more and more time on his own private venture, to the constant distress of the owners of Aerolease Group. Today, Aeroplax lawyers believe it was "created to compete with and siphon business away from the Aeroplex group" by leveraging Castagna's connections in the South Cali area. The owning families of Aeroplex only learned of the other business in 2015, when Castagna let slip that the business was active. He "mollified" them "by assuring that they were majority owners and that the joint venture would be profitable for all". 

Of course, the lawsuit highlights the troublesome nature of doing business with friends: When personal relationships are brought into the mix, otherwise untenable situations and unfavorable arrangements last a whole lot longer than they should have. Some ownership transfer happened in 2019, which is plenty of drama unto itself, but management reportedly took particular issue with Castagna's appointment to his presidency at the NATA. Their case alleges that he continued to draw the same salary despite spending so much more time in D.C, and hired a slate of extra, costly personnel to pick up the slack at Aeroplex. Worse, they allege that he employed his kids on Aeroplex' payroll, and assigned them work to do for the AGP brand. The suit alleges that Castagna's daughter has been given a cool $5,000/month retainer just to perform "social media services". They toss another bugbear on the pile with allegations of sloppy record keeping, making it even more of a headache just to find out where "Aeroplex" ends and "Aeroplex Group Partners" begins. That will be tough to unspool, but there are some cost-sharing agreements in place, as well as a Management Services Agreement. Once Castagna threatened to quit unless the other owners sold back their remaining ownership interests, they ended the relationship.

Castagna says he looks forward to "working collaboratively with the ownership interests of the Aerolease Group entities to unwind long-standing business relationships in a manner that allows all parties to flourish in the future, while tenants and users receive the same exceptional service they have experienced for generations."

While it's hard at this point in time to really effectively judge who's in the right, the whole story is another valuable case study in bookkeeping, friendship, and management. Keeping businesses separate, ensuring a robust paper trail, and generating copiously detailed documents while working for two similar-but-separate operations could have done wonders to prevent this from ever reaching the court. As it stands, an industry bigwig is now embroiled in some good old courtroom drama, further hampering its legitimacy in the public eye.

FMI: www.aeroplex.net