SKYW provides funding to UA, ASA to fly UAX
 

ASA to operate aircraft for United Express
 

SkyWest, Inc. Announces Funding Arrangement With United Airlines, Extension of United Express Flying and United Express Flying for Atlantic Southeast Airlines - Yahoo! Finance

so much for AWAC or Xjet. Hopefully this will get some callbacks for you guys though.

Congrats to the ASA guys. Hopefully you will have some guys and gals off the street soon. I guess it won't be Atlanta, somewhere, atlanta for long.

What does this mean for MESA? Are they new routes or some of Mesa's?

"ASA will begin operating as a United Express carrier starting in the first quarter of 2010. All of the 13 regional jets are intended to be in operations by May of 2010. SkyWest anticipates that ASA will operate these aircraft under a capacity purchase agreement, for five years, and it is anticipated that they will be compensated in similar fashion to the SkyWest Airlines current agreement."

So ASA found a home for 14 (1 spare) of the 20 jets. This is good news for us but I doubt it will lead to any call backs. Between PBS and the net loss of 6 aircraft in the spring there won't be a need for more pilots.

Still though good news for us since it'll shorten recall times

What does this mean for Mesa?

I'm sure the routes will be former 737 routes.

IS ASA replacing Mesa?

Guys, the RFP was for 50+ aircraft. There will have to be more awarded than just the 13 here.

Mesa is going to continue swapping out CRJ 200s for CRJ 700s (I believe they have 10 NexGen CR7's coming online). From what I'm hearing, there will be a slight reduction in YV CRJ 200 flying, but everything else is doing 'ok'.

Congrats ASA folks! As much as I would like to say it, Flyasa is dead on, with PBS being implemented recalls are not likely, unless there is even more growth. Keep in mind we received 10 crj-900's, at a cost of 20 crj-200's, and we also lost the ATR last December.

doesn't this still leave ASA with 7 of the 20 CRJs Delta is pulling offline that will need a home?

Congrats ASA!!! It's a small step but at least it's in the right direction. I do hope that this results in callbacks.

It's also nice to see SKW through some of that money around (HC money) in order to gain ASA more flying and secure some of ours. Although we'll see what happens if UAL goes BK next year and yes I know that SKW included a BK clause in order to secure their investment.

Let’s see……….SKW giving money to UAL reminds me of RAH and Midwest/F9. LOL!

6. Contract is for 13+1 spare.

Keep in mind that this agreement also secures the future for 40 of SKW Airlines a/c.

That's huge.

Appreciate your support.

I'm not the only one. You should see the amount of SKW pilots that are posting on our company forum about how happy they are for you guys!!

All this press release tells us is that ASA got about 1/4 of the aircraft specified in the United RFP...no word yet on a home for the other 33 aircraft in the bid.

Would it be beneficial for United to split this RFP up 3 or 4 ways? I would think that having 3 or 4 different regionals to deal with would make things way more complicated than they need to be.

Is this SKYW or SKYWEST inc that will have the rights to the large turbo'd award ?

My understanding is that it's included in the 8 year extension with SKW Airlines and not SKW Inc.

I got the impression that it will only be one new crew base despite the fact we are going to be flying out of IAD and ORD. Which city will get the new base? I'm guessing IAD. In any case the, "Anywhere but Atlanta Group" will be happy and I'm thinking the relatively small size of the new base will keep it pretty senior.

Can you post a source?

Now I am just a bit worried on how Delta feels about this... After all they are still ASA's main contract and 2010 is our 5yr review.

.............

I dont work for ASA obvioulsy but i was just talking to my wife yesterday about how down our country has become about everything and how depressed we are. You guys just got new flying that hopefully will prevent furloughs and maybe lead to something more for you guys. Thats good news isnt it?
Delta likes to think the world revolves around them but it doesnt so maybe being more diverse is a good thing. I wish Pinnacle's eggs werent all in one basket.
Congrats to ASA guys.

Why would they care? Skywest, Mesa, Pinnacle (through Colgan), and RAH all fly for different carriers while flying for Delta too. RAH has loaned money to Frontier, Midwest, and US Airways.

I think Delta should be more concerned with funding a potential direct competitor with their contracts with RAH.

The wording was sent out to our company so until I can find it on the internet I cannot post our COO (Chip’s) correspondence. Sorry, been there done that.

Once again, that's HUGE!

I agree, Delta doesn't give a crap.

It also dispels that rumor that Delta wants to buy ASA back.

They could do that, they could give it back to Mesa too. We'll just have to wait and see.

They may say SKW Airlines, but that part is irrelevant. It will go to whomever they decide. There's nothing to prevent them from buying the certificate of somebody who operates Q400s already and having them do the flying.

Just like how when SkyWest, Inc. bought ASA and made a big deal about how ASA had the rights to 80% of DCI flying in ATL. Then later we found out after SKW moved in full force that it really applied to Inc., and they could do what they want.

Yes, there's nothing to stop them (no union), but history has shown our Mgmnt group to be all about SKW Airlines. In every single transaction that SKW Inc has agreed to or negotiated they've always given a kick back to SKW Airlines.

1. ASA purchase secured SKW footing on SLC and future growth.
2. ExpressJet purchase was going to include future ERJ flying for SKW under the CAL banner.
3. ASA's UAL agreement secures 40 of our jets futures and offers us last rights on any TP award.

If we had any other Mgmnt team I would say yes that could happen and although it could it won’t.

Also your comment about SKW in ATL is only partially true. We didn’t come in with full force, we waded in and still to this day haven’t commented our full resources to the amount of flying we have out there. Regardless it was comical (toward Inc.) to see SKW pull the SLC card on ASA just to put us in ATL. Just goes to show you that ASA will survive but only benefit when SKW benefits.

This is just my opinion and I’m pro-pilot (ASA and SKW).

PS. Have you checked to see if ASA only covers the 80% mark in ATL with SKW included? I'm sure we don't factor into your ATL DCI %age mark.

Why would UAL issue an RFP for 50+ 50 seaters? I thought they wanted OUT of the 50 seat market. I can see them replacing Mesa, but we only have 26 or so 50 seaters. What's with the additional numbers? I don't get it.

I sure hope so. I would hate to see the junior/poorest folks, myself included, turned into commuters involuntarily.

It's United..........they don't care about what makes good business sense. They only care about screwing their own labor groups.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...12/tilton3.jpg

Need I say more?:)

Basically Skywest is loaning UA money in order to pay itself back. I'm not sure I'd want to be loaning UA money right now, secured or not.

People said the same about RAH loaning money to MEH, F9 and Mokulele.

Amazingly that part of Chips post has vanished! It has been edited...

Yeah I saw that............LOL!

Depends on where the base is. Until it's announced it's all opinion. You were one of the ones who said multiple times that ASA would never place the 50s anywhere because that market is no more. That didn't exactly hold true. Remember, many of the "anywhere but Atlanta" people are Texas and Florida commuters, which would make ORD or IAD a longer ride to work.

As for delta, who cares about the review in 2010? Those airplanes are ours and needed to be with another carrier to diversify ASA and Inc. Can't people show a little optimism for once? In a bad economy they were able to place 14 of these planes into service for a min of 5 years. This is substantially better than all 20 going to the desert and more tough staffing times ahead for ASA.

Not really for the UAL 73 drivers that got the f-bomb.