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NetJets, the luxury plane unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, agreed to settle U.S. charges that it discriminated against immigrant workers by requiring them to provide extra documents to prove their employment eligibility. The settlement calls for NetJets to be monitored by the U.S. Department of Justice for two years, improve training of its human resources staff, and pay a $41,480 civil penalty, the department said on Friday. NetJets denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle, and cooperated in the probe. A spokesman had no immediate comment. Based in Columbus, Ohio, NetJets specializes in "fractional" aircraft ownership, which lets individuals...

The surprise announcement yesterday that NetJets Chairman David Sokol had resigned from Berkshire Hathaway under a cloud of insider trading suspicion produced smiles of satisfaction among many general aviation leaders. When the word of Sokol’s sudden exit spread during a dinner at the Sun ‘n Fun airshow in Lakeland, Fla., last night, one general aviation manufacturing CEO said, “There’s celebrating going on in Wichita and Savannah today.” Sokol cancelled orders for hundreds of business jets built by Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, both based in Wichita, Kan., and Gulfstream, which is headquartered in Savannah, Ga. He said he did so to...

Hawker Beechcraft announced Monday that fractional ownership company NetJets has canceled a "significant" number of aircraft it had on order. The cancellations will reduce Hawker Beechcraft's backlog by $2.6 billion and represent 90 percent of the aircraft that NetJets has on order with Hawker Beechcraft. The planes were to have been delivered over several years beginning in 2011. So far this year, NetJets has canceled 12 aircraft it had on order and deferred delivery of all jets it was scheduled to receive this year and next until the end of 2010. Hawker Beechcraft has said that NetJets wasn't expected to...

Demand for private jets is way down and NetJets will lay off almost 500 pilots as a result -- almost 20% of its staff of 3,000 pilots. because of a decrease in demand. NetJets is a unit of investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway

FAA Grounds All Learjet Model 45 Business Jets By Don Phillips Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 12, 2003; 4:50 PM The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the immediate grounding of all 222 Learjet Model 45 business jets after discovering that a part in the tail section can fail abruptly, possibly leading to a loss of control of the airplane. The grounding is a blow to Learjet owner Bombardier of Montreal, whose stock was already undergoing a pounding in recent months. It was also a blow to Bombardier subsidiary Flexjets, one of three major competitors to Warren Buffett's business jet fractional...