Originally Posted by trent890

You're not completely correct in stating that Mesa is trying to get rid of the entire Dash fleet while trimming itself down to only CRJ-700/-900s. If you look at the exhibits for the filing with the bankruptcy court regarding the rejection of aircraft leases, it would seem to be a fire sale! Not just Dashes, but several CRJ-200/-700/-900 aircraft are included in the filing as well. This lease rejection plan has to be approved by the judge at a hearing in early February. Mesa is then requesting a five day notification window (if I recall correctly) between the time it notifies a lessor of the rejection, and the time at which they can abandon the asset on an individual aircraft by aircraft basis.

I suspect some of the first leases to be rejected would certianly be the CRJ-200 aircraft that are currently parked and not in revenue service. I wouldn't expect to see the Dash leases up for rejection until we get closer to the UAL contract ending in late April. But some of the CRJ-200, and all of the CRJ-700 leases are likely to be rejected at about the same time as the Dash leases, as they are both part of the UAL contract. What would be left is a CRJ-200/-900 and EMB-145 fleet; quite different than the exclusive CRJ-700/-900 fleet you mention.

However I do agree with you that 6 aircraft worth of flying is unprofitable for virtually any airline that feeds traffic to a major airline partner. When the UAL contract ends, I do think that Mesa will reject the leases on all of the aircraft in their Dash fleet. This could then benefit PDT by taking over the leases on some number of the -200s and flying them out west. However, by rejecting all of the Dash leases, Mesa would then be in default on the Dash portion of their feed agreement with US Airways. How that feed agreement would be amended is what really concerns me. It's obvious that Mesa is counting on the revenue from the continuing operations of the CRJ-200/-900s for US Airways in order to have any hope of ever emerging from bankruptcy.