I'm no lawyer, but DENpilot made a valid point in reference to the preliminary injunction. Mesa would have presented some kind of 'evidence' (used losely around JO's crew, no offense to Mesa pilots) that would justify/merit Mesa's rights (link: Preliminary injunction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
The court granted the preliminary injunction because the purpose of the hearing was not to substantiate the claims at that point in time, it's a temporary hold until the court hears the full case and watches each side draw arms to blow holes in the other.

Disclaimer: the following is my objective opinion. No doubt Delta has muscle and will be flexing during the case being held in the ATL, home field advantage to start things off. Detla clearly wants to terminate the contract and if I was a betting man... then the question is whether Mesa's mismanagement can keep them afloat, according to Mesa's own 10-K they do not have the operating cash flows or working capital to pay for parked ERJ's.

 

Maybe Mesa will get lucky and the judge is one of those many "mishandled" Delta passengers, and he holds a grudge.

Anyways back to reality,..

The judge was quoted in saying something along the lines of not wanting to make a ruling right then and there that would put a company out of business, and people on the street..without first going to court. (I can't find the article, but i remember reading an article with the judge talking about it)

As i recall, Mesa came to the injunction court date over the summer with NOTHING aside "if we lose this flying, we'll go out of business". They had no performance data to show that day.

THAT is the only reason the injunction was filed. I do not see Mesa winning this.

Delta wouldn't pursue this in court, if they didn't feel they would win, and Mesa HAS to pursue it in court, because they have NO CHOICE.

 

It doesn't matter if Mesa HAD numbers it is all gone. They deleted it with porn or cartoons of daffy duck JO was studying so he could emulate in his next meeting/conference call.

 

Hard to disagree with that statement. It's very possible a new map for the Regional world will need to be drawn in 2009.

 

The injunction had nothing to do with evidence, it's about time. The judge granted the injunction because if he hadn't MESA wouldn't be around to go to trial. The injunction allowed MESA to continue business long enough to be present for the trial. Without the injunction MESA would have been force to file BK.






OO.

 

I believe Mesa, in getting the injunction, provided evidence that a number of the cancellations were not Mesa-caused, but were rather cancellations requested by Delta...Delta then used these very same cancellations in their data to justify the cancellation of the Mesa contract.

Again, the burden of proof was on Mesa in order to be granted the injuction. If the judge felt that Delta was justified in cancelling the contract, the injunction would never have been issued. The judge would have believed that Mesa had a strong case in order to grant the injunction. This wasn't a pitty party.

Delta and Mesa are like a bad marriage. This process can be dragged on in the courts, but that takes up valuable time and costs quite a bit of money...neither of which many airlines have much of nowadays. Delta has made it clear, regardless of Mesa's perfomance, that there are irreconcileable differences here. The better option would be to reach some sort of mediated settlement, pay off Mesa, and be on their merry way. This would provide Mesa w/ some much needed cash and would allow Delta to continue its agenda of consolidating their regional feed and trimming perhaps some additional feed from other code-share partners.

 

As we enter another Great Depression, as Charles Darwin had explained, the "Herd will be culled", there is no doubt that we all know that. Clamoring for justice, is like crying out for help in a room full of deaf and blind people, when seeking fairness in the corporate airline environment.

Then there is the issue of karma, what comes around, goes around.

mulhalo.

J.O has been on the fortunate momentum end, time and time again, and he has always been walking away the victor. He rarely was in the right, or Just, position, but that stuff really doesn't seem to matter. It should, we all know that, but it just doesn't. Delta, like J.O. will screw anyone anytime for a quarter, its just this time, Mesa / Freedom, has the bad cards in their hand, and that's it. There is no way they are going to win this dirty deal. Delta, this time, has the opportunity to throw its weight around in the face of fairness, and what is right, or Just, and subsequently, this time, Delta, with all its pomp, and all its glory, will prevail, you can bet on it, and that's that.

 

I can assue you that no one is covering up a 30 min dept. delay.... yeah, we may fudge 5 or 10 mins here or there to compensate for the lack of ramp staff that is supposed to load our planes in a timely fashion (which never happens)....all supplied by delta and COMAIR nonetheless.....

 

Must be nice to be able to fudge - those of us with ACARS still manage to make our performance numbers without the 5-10 minute fudging.

 

Riiiiiiiiiight. Acars isn't fool proof