Originally Posted by Ellen

Mesa Airlines abandons fourteen cities in May, pilot attrition cited as reason.

The winds have shifted and Jonathan Ornstein's "scorched Earth tactics" in Hawaii and across the globe have finally turned back against him. The fire is now burning uncontrollably close to Phoenix.

Visalia, California Airport manager Mario Cifuentes blamed several of Mesa's recent delays on a lack of pilots. Mario Cifuentes says about Mesa, "there weren't a whole lot of pilots available".

With todays announcement of Cedar City, Utah, this makes FOURTEEN cities in the past month Mesa Airlines is abandoning. Nine of the cities being abandoned were announced in the past FOUR DAYS.

Cedar City, Utah

Visalia, California

Merced, California

Ely, Nevada

Moab and Vernal, Utah

Roswell, New Mexico

Alamogordo, New Mexico

Farmington, New Mexico

On May 3rd Mesa announced Air Midwest would terminate service to the cities of DuBois, Franklin/Oil City and Lancaster, Pennsylvania / Hagerstown, Maryland / Greenbrier/White Sulphur Springs/Lewisburg, West Virginia and Athens, Georgia.

The DOT filed an Order Prohibiting Termination of Service and Requesting Proposals.

While every one of these cities is a community with families and businesses that are being affected one way or the other; While every one of these cites has their story with Mesa Airlines; Only one city is Mesa's true Hometown.

Farmington, New Mexico. This would be comparable to Hawaiian pulling out of Honolulu, or united abandoning Chicago.

At one time Air Midwest was the premier regional to be employed by. It is saddening to watch Mesa sacrifice this once proud airline in a vein attempt to solve their spiraling pilot attrition problem.

http://mesalies.blogspot.com/