2000s
In August 2003, Paradise Island Airlines' operating certificate was sold to US Airways Group. In 2004, a long-term codeshare agreement with Continental Airlines was signed. In March 2006, Thomas L. Cooper sold his stake in the company to Gulfstream International Group, Inc., a newly formed corporation.
In 2009, U.S. Congress investigators and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) accused Gulfstream of falsifying flight time records, making crews fly longer hours than allowed by law, and providing below standard aircraft maintenance. The company's owner and chief pilot, Thomas L. Cooper, forbade the photocopying of aircraft logbooks done by some pilots to corroborate the times they logged in their personal logbooks.
Historically, pilots were paid "segment hours" which were based on en route (or takeoff-to-landing) times as opposed to block (or gate-to-gate) times and have been suspected of being part of an inducement for under reporting. Logging of true block hours could be detrimental to a pilot's pay. Whereas, most carriers pay pilots based on block time, since it is what FAA flight time limits are based on, Gulfstream did not. An incentive existed to under report block time by keeping it as close to en route time as possible thereby permitting pilots to get paid for the most en route hours in a given period. Delays that increased block times not only reduced the crewmember's utility to Gulfstream but also limited his pay. In 2009, Gulfstream International Airlines came under additional scrutiny due to three fatal crashes that all involved pilots[6] that were trained at the Gulfstream Training Academy (its sister company[7]), the last one in February 2009, where 50 died on Colgan Air Flight 3407 near Buffalo, NY.[8][5]
In May 2009, the federal government issued a fine of $1.3 million against Gulfstream International Airlines after the Federal Aviation Administration found that it had falsified flight time records, allowing crews to fly longer hours than allowed by law, and providing below standard aircraft maintenance.[7] In response, CEO Dave Hackett stated that "the airline does not have safety violations"[9][10] and "the vast majority of findings were not violations at all".[11]
