Mesa loses United flying
 

Mesa Air Group, Inc. Announces Update on CRJ-200s Operating at United Airlines

Not all flying, just the CRJ 200 stuff

Well at least for now it looks this way. Im sure Mesa would renew the deal in a heartbeat at Uniteds request if they asked.

actually no... the CRJ 200 ops are marginal at best.. which is why USAirways also had YV pull out all 50 seat flying from PHX (why fly a 50 seater when the 86 seaters only cost a bit more..).

Word from my close buddies at the Crystal Palace is that some of the 50 seaters will end up in Hawai'i, some may enter into new pro-rates, and the rest will be sent back to the lessors.

however, this does mean a job loss, and that's never a good sign, regardless of which airline is scratched on the paint by the door.

:(

I think you've been misinformed on that; there are still several 200's in PHX.

Mesa's cuts will be far deeper than any other regional out there. I predict by May '10 our most junior FO will be at best a May '06 hire. That's right, the most junior FO at the company will probably be on 5th year pay. Of course, this is assuming we survive, which I think we (or they) will.

How many crews do you think they will cut per aircraft parked? 3,4,or 5?

This just sucks. Totally confirmed my job loss (and hundreds more I would imagine behind me).

I dont think anything is official yet. The extension was not granted for those aircraft but that just means that United felt that they could renegotiate better rates and a better contract. There has been a bidding war going on between xjt, tsa, skywest, and mesa for this contract. Your contract wasn't renewed but there could still be a "new" mesa contract with cheaper rates but with the same old airplanes. Same thing could very well go for the Dash's as well.
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you never know. The ASA 13 aircraft thing and the TSA recalls are not good signs for mesa to continue this flying.

Delta has already cut Comair that deep, but instead of a quick stab ours is from a hundred papercuts on top of one another.

Our 2005 contract specified 199 aircraft. Next year we'll be at 85.

Good on ya for being optimistic, or at least trying to cheer us up. But seriously - it's over. Unless UAL doesn't care one bit about their product (I mean not even a teensy tiny bit) then we will not be signing a new contract. I am embarrassed to work for Mesa most days. Our planes are so crappy, torn up, broke down and it just rolls down hill as our performance numbers suffer. If JO, Lotz and cronies would have put just a LITTLE investment into our operation to keep our planes halfway decent, our performance would have been a heck of a lot better. In fact, towards the end, if we cut out like 7 D-0 events a day, we'd go from last, to first.... according to management (take it with a grain of salt now). But, they just wanted to keep cutting back, and before long, they had a poor operation based on crappy airplanes.

It's a shame to see. The Mesa pilots put a lot of effort into this. I worked really hard to do the best I could. The rest of our folks did too. We could have had something good here.

You guys only have 85 airplanes?!?!??! :eek: OMG I didn't realize it was that bad over there! Holy moly.

And it may get worse with the new FA rotation based on their rest requirements. Expect even more crew delays on the UA side.

There is definitely no future with Mesa. The Delta stuff is done with in 2 years and thats another 22 airplanes. Crazy how our seniority list went from 1800 pilots and will go to about 800 or less in 1.5 years.

It's official

I dont think you quite understand my post. Sure it is official that mesa's current contract was not renewed but United could very well just sign a brand new contract with mesa starting May 1, 2010 with the same aircraft. There is nothing stopping them from doing so.

Mesa Air Group Fleet
 

Mesa Airlines Certificate Fleet (DBA; GO!, MESA AIRLINES, UNITED EXPRESS, US AIRWAYS EXPRESS)

38 CL-600-2D24
20 CL-600-2C10 (10 on Option)
46 CL-600-2B19
16 DHC-8-202


Freedom Airlines Certificate Fleet (DBA; DELTA CONNECTION)

34 EMB-145LR

You are correct, that could happen.

But it's highly doubtful that United will.

Mesa mgt. has already acknowledged that it's not going to happen.

We have to get out of the 50 seat CRJ 200 market. It's a waste and there's no sense prolonging the pain. We'll have to figure out a way to get out of all of this intact, that is the challenge right now. If we do, we'll be in good shape.

Again, look at the numbers: 56 CRJ 200s @ Mesa, 250 CRJ 200s @ SkyWest.

It's going to suck for just about anyone who has a sizeable number of CRJ 200s right now. One can either deal with that problem head-on, or you can move it to the back-burner to deal with later. In a way, United did us a favor.

I agree with many of the things you are saying about the CRJ 50 seats not being a good thing. Should you also include TSA, ExpressJet, Air Wisconson, etc. also?
It will be interesting to see how all this turn out.

Majors' scope precludes almost any future growth in the 70/90 market, even as 1 for 1 replacements for 50's. Therefore, the Regionals will continue to fly 50 seaters as a staple of feed into the future. American is the only one I can think of recently that is allowing more 70 seaters. Not sure what United's cap is, but I believe Delta is at the limit and I don't think Continental allows any 70 seaters. So, are we saying that if 200's need to, or are going to, disappear, then who or what will feed the hubs?

I gota disagree with that from the pilots point of view, you sound like management. If they renewed it I would not be out of a job next year. If they would have replaced them with 700's i would not be out of a job.

my bad but perhaps your right but I do not think UAL will do that besides they got ASA now (thanks to Skywest)

I am sorry this could result in you losing your job. That is the tragic consequence of all of all of this. Mesa is now literally forced to sink or swim with the CRJ 200 issue. Too many carriers don't have a viable plan right now for their 50 seaters. It is a major issue that will affect the regionals for years to come. We're first up to bat. We failed in China, but that was a great idea to shift CRJ 200 lift to a foreign market to supplement income.

Because CRJ 700s have more seats and equate to more lift, you can't replace every CRJ 200 with a 700. We are still working to preserve and possibly grow our CRJ 700 flying with United as well. Even CRJ 700s, as oil prices begin to exceed $100/bbl, become very expensive to operate, so I'm not sure that's the best long-term solution either.

Look at United all by itself in all of this. Over 100,000 employees 8 years ago. Today, south of 50,000 employees. United had over 650 aircraft on property 8 years ago, today they have 350 aircraft. Downsizing is a very painful reality for this industry. Mesa needs to downsize and re-tool its fleet if it wants to sustain its long-term existence. Most importantly, it needs to make sure it is more successful than United in doing this.

"as oil prices begin to exceed $100/hour"

?

Good catch. $100/bbl (barrel).

Thanks...

deleted.....

Hey I want two 50-seaters back!:eek::p Actually it is 87 "projected" by end of 2011. Gotta use the quotation marks when you're dealing with DL!:D

The whole picture at Mesa looks pretty darn awful. The 50-seaters could have been supplanted, but for JO and his Hawaiian vanity project that has literally bled cash from a company that had more than adequate cash reserves two years ago.

The court settlement dollars alone would have put Mesa into the SKW pay-for-play competition, and the monthly cash bleed from GO! operations would have allowed them to likely work out a deal for more 700s. But between bad/poor cash (and every other kind of) management hubris with respect to Go! and Kunpeng it seemed just a question of how fast they could throw good money after bad IMHO. The faster they could get rid of cash seemingly the better job they all thought they were doing.

And to the commenter up-thread who said that a little more maintenance would have helped... it would have, but no matter how hard we worked, every delay was the crew's fault and there was no winning. D-0 numbers in IAD were routinely ruined by rampers who could not effectively communicate, did not show up to push on time or a galaxy of other things. Somehow when I would go in and out of ORD none of the issues in IAD ever seemed to surface with the same regularity, and the D-0 numbers routinely seemed to be better.

If UA were to somehow re-award 200 flying back to Mesa, which I think is unlikely, then it would probably be for even less money or as a stop-gap month-to-month sort of deal when they had high demand (holiday travel) and would be profitable for UA but not for Mesa. I think that Skywest and Republic will soon rule the regional universe because they don't seem to make questionable decisions and have an actual business plan.

Buying not one but two floundering airlines with stifling competition and creating deep labor strife is questionable business planning at best.

I think republic and SKW may be headed in two fundamentally different directions...

SKW: Staying focused on traditional regional feed on the assumption that there will always be a market for that, although the contract fundamentals will be different going forward (more risk for the regional). If there continues to be a feed market, then SKW is well-positioned based on their size and finances, which gives them good economy-of-scale efficiencies and enough cash to avoid getting forced into a money-losing deal to keep airplanes flying.

RAH: Seems like they are operating under the assumption that the regional business model is toast and they need to position themselves to move into the real airline business. They hope to succeed by bringing regional pay and benefits (ie little and none) to larger airplanes, perhaps with a small override. Or maybe they just have a leader with an ego problem, and he wants to be the next Juan Trip (ala JO)...you never know with the owner-operator types.

The SKW approach assumes that 50-70 seaters will always be needed, at least to serve smaller towns...which is probably true. The government might get away with dropping EAS to a few one-stop-sign towns, but if cities with 100,000+ population start losing airline service the political pressure will mount.

The flip-side would be a scenario where mainline does away with small jets to focus on large cities/international, or scopes them in-house. This might happen if fuel gets ridiculously expensive or if mainline pilots unite (unlikely, cuz no one group could do it alone...they would scope themselves out of business).

when will they start pulling the CRJs out?

Estimated total of 800 pilots with furloughs going thru April, just got the email. Depending on the number of voluntary furloughs, it'll put the most junior pilot as a Feb 2006 hire.

Wow, sorry to hear it guys. Best of luck to everybody.

"These reductions will obviously result in additional furloughs. We presently expect to reduce staffing by approximately 300 pilots from this date forward, bringing the total active MAG pilot staffing to approximately 800 pilots."
115 inactive pilots on the rosters this month
depending on how the VOL furloughs go, probably looking close to Jan 07 hire.
I just hope the CRJ becomes the JR airplane so i can get the F out of CVG.

I like how Johnny claims it to be the issue of "50-seaters" being the problem. Of course, didn't UAL just announce the replacement of that flying with.......................50-seaters ?

My guess is that Mesa may not even be an airline in another 2 years.

How many aircraft does mesa operate for UAL...50 seaters? XJet just got 22.... 50 seat a/c for UAL. Wonder if UAL is shrinking the overall 50 seat market at the end of all this....

...might want to make that "Mesa or UAL" may not even be an airline in another 2 years...

Mesa has 26, so not much shrinkage, if any. XJT probably doesn't need as many spares as mesa :rolleyes:

Yep and ASA got 15. 22+15=37 50 seaters, so that's a net plus.

Nothing I would call "significant shrinkage"

J.O. probably has "shrinkage" after this--in the Seinfeld sense. :eek: