This thread has a lot of new guys who really don't have the background knowledge to comment, so I appreciate this post with its eye towards historical context. Because sure, the training department is fine, but we would be remiss to ignore the rich and sordid history of Mesa Air Group's unethical treatment of mainline partners and employees over the last few decades.

Since the early days of Larry Risley, the airline had a reputation for being stingy and low paying. It grew to prominence through a series of mergers and acquisitions that began in earnest during the 1980's. Some of those acquired airlines were casualties of the process and thoroughly gutted after getting bought for cents on the dollar (Aspen Airways).

As it grew, management had numerous pilot groups to deal with that were quickly unionizing. This was remedied in 2002 by the creation of Freedom. What was Freedom?
Mesa Air Group has also been a proud participant in numerous lawsuits, including getting sued by United 1997 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_A...ited_codeshare), by Aloha and Hawaiian in 2006 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_A...lated_lawsuits), and oddly enough trying to sue Delta, in Atlanta, around 2008 (MESA AIR GROUP INC v. DELTA AIR LINES INC | FindLaw). More recently, our union sued the company as well.

My favorite was the Aloha lawsuit. Essentially Mesa looked at its books for the purposes of investment or acquisition when the airline wasn't doing well. After saying "No thanks," the company turned around and illegally used that information to compete in Hawaii on the same routes, effectively killing Aloha. They successfully sued us for tens of millions of dollars, but not before we lost the same or more flying CRJ's at a loss around Hawaii.

Shenzen Airlines is another fun one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_A...npeng_Airlines We had a big falling out with a Chinese airline after trying to create a local joint venture with it. The wanted nothing to do with us after the fact.

Following all these shenanigans, Mesa was the object of a Congressional inquiry and heavily reorganized by a bankruptcy court. They found our CEO contracted with and outsourced to a lot of his own companies, and Mesa paid those companies handsomely for their services. Ask around about the Del Rio, the shady hotel he owned and put crews in. The bankruptcy court put a stop to all that, but many rumors exist on how he faced no legal prosecution. Earlier, he actually fled the country after illegal dealings on Wall Street. That's how he went to the UK for several years and got to be "good buddies" with Richard Branson. Supposedly his lawyer eventually reached a plea deal in which he could return with no jail time.

There is also an extensive history of mistreatment of employees. The company has always stalled negotiations as long as possible, and we were in negotiations for this recent TA for seven years. The only company I know that went longer was Republic, I think their management held out for eight.

Even after reaching a contract, the company fights tooth and nail to readjust the meaning of plain English. My favorite example of this was when we went into arbitration over 50-seat base pay. The company was paying pilots the far lower CRJ-200 rates for sick time, vacation, training, etc. While the contract never specified how that time would be paid, our union reasonably argued that there is only one spare CRJ-200 on property, and our 100+ other aircraft were all in the 76 seat range. It stands to reason we should be paid what nearly every aircraft on property reflects, and what we're normally paid for flying duties.

The story goes that they took a current PHX Captain who hated flying the line and had been part of those negotiations on the union's side, offered him a cushy desk job to say the understanding at the time favored the company's present position, and he did just that. The kicker is after it was all done, they sent him back to the line.

As our seniority list dwindled the last two years amidst stalled negotiations, low pay, and crew mistreatment, there were concerns raised about the caliber of pilot coming to the company. Why would anyone come here when they could make two or three times as much at almost any other regional? It became apparent we were getting the unwanted pilots who couldn't get hired anywhere else. People with DUI's, constant checkride busts, accidents, personality deficiencies, and various other skeletons. Many couldn't hack it at other regionals. There were (are) also the second career types who've just dinked around in Cessnas the last 30 years and want to fly a big boy jet; many of them haven't done the stereotype surrounding them any favors.

These people aren't everyone here, but they do exist, and in numbers far exceeding what most are comfortable with. Now Mesa pilots have a reputation of being low quality, and some legitimately worry about their prospects of getting hired anywhere besides Spirit.

None of this even begins to address the day to day grind of dealing with crew tracking, their attempts to junior assign you, shoddy maintenance, less days off, lower pay, bad hotels, and so much more. But hey, if you're not concerned about any of this, come give Mesa a try!

(Seriously, go through some old threads. The anti-Mesa sentiment is alive and well in threads over a decade old on this website)