Big Sky
 

Just doing some searching and noticed that no one has talked about Big Sky for the entire month of December!

Anyone have the latest and greatest on hiring and expansion? Noticed they are opening up a base down in FLL, any word on the progress there? Also how long is that upgrade running right now?

Figured i'd try and open up some discussion on them, it's been a while!!

Aren't they the ones that are going to pick up the pieces for Chalks?

Haha, yeah that's one thing that I was reading. I have to say I think it would be kinda cool if they opened up shop down there. Be cool if you could change bases, fly in the mountains and ski in the winter then go to the beach in the summer! I might be down for that.

If the announcement at Mesaba today comes to fruition, I predict there will be a lot of growth at BigSky in 2007.

Here's where i'm a little uninformed. What is the connection between Mesaba and Big Sky? Can't find a whole lot of info. on that.

I thought I had heard that the deal with Chalks down in FLL was dead in the water. The airplanes and crews that went down to FLL had since returned to Montana and rejoined the fleet where they were flying around empty to stupid little towns out there.

MAIR is our parent company. We are sisters sort of. MAIR owns Mesaba and purchased Bigsky a few years back. Currently there is a scope letter between MAIR and Mesaba that says any flying over 19 seats that MAIR gets will be flown by Mesaba pilots. That is why BigSky only has 1900's. If Mesaba gets sold to NWA as came up today in an announcement, that scope letter could dissolve and allow BigSky to grow rapidly.

Big Sky is owned my MAIR Holdings, Inc. which is the parent company of Mesaba. From what I understand, Big Sky was acquired by MAIR to whipsaw Mesaba labor groups in the same way GoJets was started. However, the Mesaba pilots were successful in limiting Big Sky to aircraft of 19 seats or less, effectively killing management's ability to use Big Sky as leverage in negotiations.

What is the public opinion that airline pilot's have of Big Sky guys? I have never heard them characterized in the same light as say Gojets and you just threw them in the same sentence with, seems like they get some respect!?

I would agree on the labor side of the justification. On the operations side, the support came from the fact that NWA needed a vehicle to secure a presence in the Northwest (geographically speaking) region for future Airlink growth. I think that "future" is upon us now. It is going to be interesting to see if this new development amounts to anything but another letter from our illustrious CEO.