As someone who was there for all of LAX, I feel the need to clarify some of this information about how LAX went down. For starters, the whole LAX base for ASA and XJT occurred while Delta was in bankruptcy. And as such, one of the biggest opponents to Deltas reorganization plan was the Los Angeles World Airport Authority. They were upset that Delta was squatting on an entire concourse of gates and many were not used for large blocks of time each day. LAX has a waiting list of new airlines wanting gate space and they wanted Delta to give up their gates. Delta responded with the idea to start using them and launch service around California and into Mexico. Being a completely new, and unvetted market, they wanted a small aircraft. Skywest was already operating there, but had no-compete clauses with UAL. This left Comair and ASA as the choice. ASA was getting kicked out of SLC because Uncle Jerry didn't want the big bad union to corrupt his holy airline. So off to LAX we go. Base announced Fall '06. Opened in Dec. About March, we were told we were being replaced by XJT in June. This has nothing to do with performance. Ours was stellar. We only had 5 airplanes and 16 round trips a day in So Cal weather. This was about corporate greed and a complete lack of compassion to employees. Hindsight being 20/20, the deal with XJT was most likely made a little after the deal with ASA, but before ASA opened the base. XJT was unable to start the service as the aircraft were still in service with CAL and they needed until summer. ASA continued to brand the whole LAX base as a permanent, long term thing. But then we started getting our SIDA badges and they were only good for 7 mos. People started asking questions and all of a sudden we didn't need Sida. Then we get our parking passes and they issued us monthly passes. We parked in the same lot as every other airline that all had yearly passes. Then, nobody questioned that our own mechanics could not work on our aircraft while it was in LAX because the company did't want to spend the money to become CAL OSHA compliant. In the end they paid for a few dozen moving bills and saved millions in hotel bills and lied all the way to the bank.
So, please spare us the "ASA was shut out due to poor performance" when you don't know, and you certainly didn't live through it.