flynwmn

Permanently Northwest planned on returning them prior to the merger and delta sped that up they plan to furlough again in april

N42ER

Good point! I keep hearing "16 planes" being thrown around all the time, and I keep thinking to myself, "what 16 planes?!". Sure, Mesa is dumping 16 planes, but not 16 US Airways Express planes. If Mesa had 25 Dash's, and only 6 were LCC and the rest were United's side, would we still think we were getting all 25?, How about if it were 6 from LCC and 50 from United. I just don't know why everyone assumes it would ever be ALL 16 planes...why would we think that? I think all that would happen would be we'd take over the ops in the west. There's no need for expansion, and in fact LCC is shrinking everywhere it can, even selling the 190's for cash and capacity reduction. I don't see how/why they'd take their cash to add more capacity since the extra 10 200's wouldn't be replacing other a/c on property, they'd be an addition. I can't figure out why that would ever happen.

And btw, I personally don't like how we're supposed to see losing 20% of the fleet, and then shortly after, gaining only 50% of that loss back, as 'expanding'. Relatively speaking it is, if you start with the reduced fleet, but really we're just shrinking at a slightly slower rate. I mean, sure it's good news, but only relatively speaking. Now I could be totally wrong in all of what I just said, but just my 2cents.

BSOuthisplace

If you were following Mesa's bankruptcy closely you would know that they are trying to get rid of their entire dash fleet, including the six dashes for Airways. In fact they tried to off load all 16 dashes before the bankruptcy. Following the announcement by United that they would be ending Mesa's dash flying, negotiations started with Piedmont to pick up the leases on all 16.

Back during my last CQ (which was before this Mesa/ west flying stuff started happening) hey buddy talked about the fact that there is a certain number of aircraft that if Piedmont gets down to, there really is no point keeping the doors open (about 30 aircraft). Same goes for Mesa. If they get down to only 6 dashes worth of flying, there is no point in keeping that aircraft in the fleet (overhead costs outweigh the benefits). Mesa is trying right now to trim itself down to a fleet of exclusively crj 700s and 900s. The only reason the west flying is on hold right now for piedmont is because those 200s are stuck in Mesa's ch.11 bankruptcy proceedings.

trent890

You're not completely correct in stating that Mesa is trying to get rid of the entire Dash fleet while trimming itself down to only CRJ-700/-900s. If you look at the exhibits for the filing with the bankruptcy court regarding the rejection of aircraft leases, it would seem to be a fire sale! Not just Dashes, but several CRJ-200/-700/-900 aircraft are included in the filing as well. This lease rejection plan has to be approved by the judge at a hearing in early February. Mesa is then requesting a five day notification window (if I recall correctly) between the time it notifies a lessor of the rejection, and the time at which they can abandon the asset on an individual aircraft by aircraft basis.

I suspect some of the first leases to be rejected would certianly be the CRJ-200 aircraft that are currently parked and not in revenue service. I wouldn't expect to see the Dash leases up for rejection until we get closer to the UAL contract ending in late April. But some of the CRJ-200, and all of the CRJ-700 leases are likely to be rejected at about the same time as the Dash leases, as they are both part of the UAL contract. What would be left is a CRJ-200/-900 and EMB-145 fleet; quite different than the exclusive CRJ-700/-900 fleet you mention.

However I do agree with you that 6 aircraft worth of flying is unprofitable for virtually any airline that feeds traffic to a major airline partner. When the UAL contract ends, I do think that Mesa will reject the leases on all of the aircraft in their Dash fleet. This could then benefit PDT by taking over the leases on some number of the -200s and flying them out west. However, by rejecting all of the Dash leases, Mesa would then be in default on the Dash portion of their feed agreement with US Airways. How that feed agreement would be amended is what really concerns me. It's obvious that Mesa is counting on the revenue from the continuing operations of the CRJ-200/-900s for US Airways in order to have any hope of ever emerging from bankruptcy.

BSOuthisplace

Only time will tell, and all we can do is speculate, but I think a lot of what you said is very unlikely to happen. crj200/900 erj fleet is not going to happen IMHO. Airways has been slowly reducing the crj200 fleet through the contract on the west side for the past year or so. Now that BK is upon Mesa, Airways will most likely pressure them to dump all of the rjs 200s, leaving only the 900s. Also remember that Mesa can renegotiate all of it's agreements. Delta flying is also on the chopping block once the litigation is settled. If you think any 50 seaters are going to make it through BK you are mistaken.

LostInPA

Totally off the topic of Mesa/-200's/growth, but someone asked about this awhile back....
Evidently all 7 October PDT lease returned aircraft are still available and haven't been placed yet. Here's the leasing company site:\

Avmax Group Inc.: Aircraft

Back on the subject of -200's/Mesa/growth, on that page above where Avmax states 3 DH2's will be available in May 2010, those aircraft are former Mesa and PDT both, 988, 989, and 991HA respectively. This concludes your useless trivia for the day.

trent890

Yes, this fact is undisputed. The US Airways code share agreement allows them to reduce "the combined CRJ fleets...by one aircraft in any six month period." One CRJ-200 is already leaving the fleet this quarter, and another is planned to leave in 3Q 2010.

Airways can't pressure Mesa to do anything. US Airways is not a creditor to the bankruptcy proceedings at Mesa. Mesa, as the current DIP, and only Mesa may choose to renegotiate the contract with US Airways, with the approval of the bankruptcy judge. In the mean time, the only "pressure" US Airways could enforce on Mesa is to terminate the entire code-sharing agreement. But this would cause the loss of all of the Dash 8 and CRJ-200/-900 feed currently performed by Mesa, a condition US Airways is currently not in a position to replace on an expedited basis.

Again, not entirely correct. The Delta flying is only on the chopping block if the litigation is settled in Delta's favor. So far, this hasn't happened. Unless resolved by the courts at an earlier date, the current court injunction will keep the Delta flying off the chopping block until the earliest code-sharing termination date in November 2013.

I think if Mesa does emerge from bankruptcy, they will have just as many 50 seaters as they need to fulfill any code share agreements for the remaining time period on those contracts. It would be foolish to abandon 50 seat aircraft that they are currently being paid to operate. They need this revenue to demonstrate that they have any sort of a financially viable future.

I'm just trying to keep your facts straight. I corrected you by stating that there are only 6 Dashes flying out west for US Airways, that PDT would not likely end up with the entire fleet of 16 that you mentioned. Then you brought up Mesa and your vision of their bankruptcy plan to trim down to a fleet of only CRJ-700/-900. Today you brought up the Delta code share and the Mesa flying being on the chopping block, along with asserting that no 50 seat jet equipment will make it through the bankruptcy process. How does this have anything to do with PDT and Dash-8 equipment and flying opportunities???

trent890

Great find Lost! Those three tail #s are three of the four former PDT airplanes that are listed in Mesa's filing for rejection of aircraft leases. I can't imagine that Mesa would need to reject the leases on those aircraft since they would normally expire sometime prior to May 2010, when the lessor Avmax Group, expects to have them available again for lease or purchase.

Phuz

LoL @ the APC shoutout on this week's AP.

For those of you on the street, nothing groundbreaking this week, current hot topics are the FLO hotel, 200/300 acquisitions, and how much commuting sucks. This thread is actually much more informative than ask pdt has been for the last several months, so attaboy to whoever pointed that out this week.

dashtrash300

What was said about APC?