Ferverda letter 03/23:


Friends/Crewmembers:

A couple of rumor control notes:

Aaron Ehlert sent a note that some sources were advising that Mesa was cancelling some of the furlough recall classes scheduled for April. Definitely not so. In fact we are moving folks up from later classes to account for no shows in previous 2012 classes and are preparing to put out the big last recall of the remaining group of some 180.

This is the background on a possible move of our Williams Field Training Center to a location more centrally located near Sky Harbor. Our contract with Arizona State University to provide aviation major students flight training thru our Mesa Pilot Development, MAPD, division expires this coming July. MAPD has been a University flight curriculum provider for 20 plus years first with San Juan Junior College in Farmington and for the past 10 years with Arizona State University, ASU. The 2 Deans, Dr. Ron Carp and Dr. Bill McCurry who founded the ASU aviation 10 years ago and who have been our close associates and ardent supports have both recently retired. The new ASU leadership has limited aviation experience and has proven difficult to work with. We did respond to their request for a proposal to renew the contract but we are not prepared to commit to their new contractual requirements and anticipate the contract will go to another provider such as CAE. Enrollment numbers for the fall term 2012 are down and the revenue projection is down accordingly making the whole present MAPD association with ASU questionable. HR 5900 will have even a larger negative impact on enrollment in these programs in the future. Our Williams facility belongs to ASU and as a result we are exploring training locations near Sky Harbor to be prepared to move this summer should the need arise. The CAE Williams CRJ sim will swap out with the CAE CRJ sim at the US Airways facility and we will have exclusive use of that simulator like we do the one at Williams. Kind of back to the good old days of 3838 V.B. and E. Broadway. Will keep you posted of additional developments.

A new recall class started this past Monday. 4 net no shows who are being moved up to earlier classes from original later classes to net 0. Section 6 this past Mon and Tues here in PHX.

Thanks and regards,
Mike