Originally Posted by
SharkAir
As I was going to my plane the other day in ORD all the passengers at the gate erupted in cheer because they thought we were the Mesa crew they had apparently been waiting for. When we pushed back the Mesa airplane was still parked with no one there but a flight attendant waiting outside. And they were scheduled out before us. I suspect the bottom line is what's ultimately important to United, but I wonder how long they're going to put up with this.
They aren't putting up with it. United is working to jettison MESA. However, due to its contact with MESA there are "Non-performance" clauses before UAL can terminate. So far MESA has executed on most of the non-performance issues. UAL is currently working on replacement flying with other regionals, however most of the other regionals cannot afford to add the extra flights UAL wants, because they too are short planes and crew.
UAL recognizes this, that is why they made the move recently to eliminate some of the turbo-prop flying that SkyWest perfroms in order to replace it with CRJ 700 jet service. (22 jets). These jets are another signal that UAL is removing MESA from the equation.