North American Airlines (New York JFK) will sell assets supporting its Washington Dulles operations to Omni Air International (OY, Tulsa International) after both parties reached an agreement. In a letter to employees, North American Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Jim Casbarro, said after studying various offers, the deal offered his carrier the best value for money.

"Several possible buyers emerged during the past several weeks. Omni won because its offer provided the best ability to close a deal, the best value in the deal, because it preserved jobs, and because it met our customer’s requirements. The deal we’ve signed with Omni provides us much needed liquidity, giving us the ability to meet many of our obligations to our people and our other stakeholders. We began discussions with [pilot's union] ALPA over the weekend to ensure we meet our obligations to our pilots," the letter reads.

Omni provides worldwide passenger charter operations to groups including tour operators, scheduled and charter airlines, cruise lines, corporations, sports teams, alumni groups, and global government agencies, using a fleet of six B767s and two B777-200(ER)s.

In a bid to raise much needed capital and allow for a restructuring of the group, parent firm, Global Aviation Holdings, entered into chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2013. Through its World Airways and North American subsidiaries, Global Aviation had provided military, cargo, passenger and commercial charter flights, but was severely affected by drastic cut-backs in US military spending. In March this year, however, sister carrier, World Airways (1948) (Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson), was forced to file for bankruptcy leaving North American to go it alone.

In January, Global Aviation Holdings won bankruptcy-court approval to sell itself to its lender, Cerberus Business Finance LLC, thereby allowing the latter to enter a credit-bid for the debtor's new equity, with Global to solicit competing offers in hopes of creating an auction.

"As you know, the North American and Global teams have been working for months to create a sale that unlocked North American Airlines’ highest and best value. That value was reduced by the military’s dramatic reductions in flying over the past year and Cerberus’ cutting NAA’s funding last month. In response to those changes, NAA transitioned to a single product line – its cash-flow positive Dulles flying. We worked closely with NAA’s customer to keep this flying funded while we pursued a sale of some kind."

North American said that pending bankruptcy court approval, Cerberus would allow the Group to retain 5% of the net proceeds of the sale of all NAA and Global assets of which 2% of the net proceeds will be used as an employee incentive plan while the other 3% will be used for healthcare expenses that went unpaid following the abrupt closure of healthcare plans on March 31, 2014.