Republic Airways Holdings Inc. may be moving closer to a possible bankruptcy after national Teamster officials backed a local pilot union’s decision against voting on the carrier’s final contract offer Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Teamsters “will not take the extraordinary step of ordering an election over the unanimous and emphatic objections of Local 357’s democratically elected local leadership,” General President James Hoffa said in a letter yesterday to Local 357. Republic shares plunged in late trading on the Teamsters’ decision, because the airline has said it might be forced into a court-supervised restructuring if a new contract isn’t secured. A chapter 11 filing is one possibility, Matt Koscal, vice president of human resources at Republic, said on Aug. 21.
