Originally Posted by
rickair7777
At face value, so it might seem so. But airlines management groups have a lot of turnover, and they don't have what I would I consider a long corporate memory. It would probably help if OJ were to somehow get divorced from mag...but I'm not sure that's possible, it seems mesa is a just a large extension of his ego.
In general I'd say there's a chance that at renewal time mag will get to compete. It is possible that the majors will take a "best value" approach instead of a "lowest cost" approach in the future. Possible, but not guaranteed by any means.
Doug Parker might be another story...he's been talking the big talk to his employees for years now and apparently personally despises OJ. Unless he simply can't live without 39 900's I suspect that he will not renew.
If a UA/US merger were to somehow happen, mag would be out of the US side for sure if for no other reason than timing. There would be a near-term need to cut feed at the merged company, and UA-ALPA has 90 seat scope. It would make sense to just let that contract die.
As long as Mesa comes in under par with prices when they discuss the contract, then I think Parker will keep them. He just said on the last Crew News that he is somewhat happy with Mesa. Only issue right now is the 900 interiors. Now, Parker changes his tone each month, so I'm not sure what to believe anymore. One month he says he would be happy if Mesa would just close up shop, then as soon as they file bk, he said they are too important to let fail. Who knows.