Hawaiian Airline fights back against Mesa
 

I thought this was awesome. So Mesa goes to Hawaii and competes against all the native Hawaiian carriers. Now a hawaiian carrier is coming back to the lower 48 to compete directly against Mesa for their federally subsidized EAS routes. Down with Mesa.



Pacific Wings, the Hawaii airline seeking subsidized routes in New Mexico, is engaging rival bidder Mesa Air Group in a public debate over the routes.

Phoenix-based Mesa (Nasdaq: MESA), whose go! operation in Hawaii recently began competing with Maui-based Pacific Wings, now finds Pacific Wings bidding for its federal subsidies to serve several New Mexico cities.

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Pacific Wings bought an ad in the Thursday edition of the Carlsbad Current-Argus to reply to points made last week in the newspaper by Jeff Hardtz, a manager for Mesa. Hardtz said the nine-seat aircraft Pacific Wings uses are too small for the Carlsbad market. Mesa uses a 19-seat aircraft.

"The aircraft they are proposing to use may be fine and good for a market like Clovis or Silver City," Hardtz said, referring to even smaller New Mexico cities that Pacific Wings is also applying to serve. "The big difference is the number of people Carlsbad boards."

In its ad, Pacific Wings notes that the same nine-seat aircraft it proposes to use is being used by Mesa's go! operation in Hawaii.

"If a nine-passenger plane will work for Mesa at Hawaii's largest airports serving millions of passengers annually, why would they say it won't work in much smaller airports and communities like Carlsbad and Hobbs?"

The ad said Pacific Wings could always launch an extra plane to handle extra traffic while Mesa "cannot eliminate waste by cutting a 19-seat aircraft in half."

The public discourse in New Mexico also turns on the federal subsidies paid by the U.S. Department of Transportation to maintain "essential air service" to cities too small to support free market air service.

Pacific Wings is a veteran EAS carrier in its service to smaller Hawaii markets such as Hana and Waimea-Kamuela, but a few months ago it said it was ready to serve some of its smaller market without EAS subsidies. In New Mexico, Pacific Wings is openly declaring its intention to wean itself from subsidies once its service is established, something it says is possible with nine-seat planes but not with 19-seat planes, noting that federal statistics say New Mexico EAS service today operates 82 percent empty on average.

While I have no first hand dealings with Pacific Wings I have several friends who went out their to work for the company. From the way they make it out this company is just as bad as Mesa. The guy that runs the place is of J.O.'s level, a truely evil person.

Second this is old news, that was announced a couple months ago.

What are they using caravans? If so you wouldn't believe what FO pay is. I think they were posting on climbto350.com

Good luck to Pacific Wings! It's nice to see an airline trying to become a thorn in J.O.'s side.

They're leaving for now, at least
 

Actually, Clovis is a Great Lakes stronghold (does GLA have "strongholds?" Oh well), as well as Silver City. Not sure if Mesa goes into Silver City presently or not. This has been brewing for quite some time, and there's a lot of regulatory hoops that have to be jumped through for Pacific Wings to get the bid, including, to my understanding, having all the cities that they plan on serving waive the 2-engine requirement by the EAS program. Turns out that for now, not all of them waived it, and they have withdrawn for the moment.

Letter stating Pacific Wings' withdrawal:
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf100/455171_web.pdf
Vote of the Clovis City Commision on the matter:
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf100/453768_web.pdf
Vote of the Silver City City Commission on the matter:
http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf100/453688_web.pdf