Join me in Federal Court!

August 4, 2026 at 0900 Eastern Time I will be trying my first case. Instructions as how to access the video trial will will be sent to the parties in advance of the hearing date, and at that time I will share with you because AIR21 trials are public for a reason, and I hope you can join us. Even the media is invited.

While I am only 5 months into law school, I have been approved as a non-attorney representative in an AIR21 lawsuit against ABX AIR. While ABX may tout themselves to be the most reliable cargo solution, they are definitely shortchanging pilot training.

This is a case that includes an instructor who is not conducting the requisite brief for both crews, as he is teaching back to back sessions, omitting the debriefs and combining the two hour pre-brief, into a one hour event in his hotel room the night prior, with all four pilots. While this is a violation of their FAA approved manual, this not the primary issue.

The students were briefed for FBS 3 (fixed base simulator session three) in the hotel room the night prior. However, those events briefed were not what the instructor taught the following day. He doesn’t do any of the FBS 3 requirements. Instead he begins teaching V1 cuts, engine failure work. Not only does he not train the required training, but during this V1 cut training he teaches a technique that opposes the FAA approved Boeing 767 training manual of which this pilot was taught, and earned a type rating at another airline. But it wasn’t the instructor doing this. The instructor was initially watching the “instructor in training” do this. To make matters worse, the actual instructor allegedly steps out of the simulator and leaves the non-instructor in charge to conduct the session.

A very courageous pilot on probation, not protected by the union, demanded proper training. The instructor blows him off, tells him that he’s better than “90 percent of the other ABX pilots” and that he’ll see him in training the following morning. The following day, prior to his session, the pilot writes a letter to flight operations management about the events, and hours later he is pulled from training. Four days later he his terminated. But before they terminate him, they offer a resignation to protect his PRD. He said, “No resignation.”

Why did they terminate him? They would not give him a reason.

The ABX attorney said, “This is not about flying.” What do you think? Is this about flying? Safety? Training? Where is the POI you ask? ABX did get a violation of order, but it was filed as a forms issue with the non-qualified instructor and not the underlying violations.

This should be a spicy trial because the ABX management team and instructors admit to their not training the lesson three (in violation of their FAA approved manual). Admit they were teaching technique (in violation of their FAA approved manual). And the director of flight operations writes, months later, that he was terminated for “not following directions” with respect to the V1 technique, in that non-standard lesson.

ABX place in this pilot’s PRD that he was terminated for performance. Despite both instructors and the chief pilot having said he was “excellent.”

If you know of a former ABX pilot courageous enough to testify, please reach out and we’ll get that pilot on the stand. This hearing is via zoom, so the pilot can be anywhere in the world. We would like to know the history of retaliation and improper training at ABX to create the full picture.

What do you think, should airlines be allowed to pick and choose what training they want to conduct?