Mesa Air Group chairman Jonathan Ornstein is close to finalising a deal that will introduce Embraer’s 195 to the operator’s fleet.
The 95-seat aircraft will be assigned to Mesa’s Hawaii start-up Go, which will be launched on 9 June with five or six Bombardier CRJ200s. Ornstein says the decision to deviate from the larger Bombardier regional jets now employed in Mesa’s fleet will give him more leverage with new and existing feeder contracts, as well as aid his Hawaii expansion.
“It will be good to have certification across all these aircraft types,” says Ornstein. “Our [Mesa Air Group] fleet will soon be running short as some 50-seater jet leases expire. Once I have [E-195] certification I will have a better opportunity to approach the [mainline] airlines with options to upgrade to larger aircraft.”
Go’s initial fleet will contain at least five and possibly as many as eight CRJ200s, says Ornstein. Of these aircraft, talks are “at a very late stage” for short-term leases on five or six ex-Independence Air Bombardier 50-seat jets held by Export Development Canada (EDC), a government agency.
EDC confirms Mesa is one of “a few” airlines in talks to lease about a dozen of the 27 Independence Air and 15 Northwest Airlines Bombardier regional jets currently owned by the Canadian government agency as part of a lease guarantee deal with Bombardier customers.
At the end of 2005 Mesa Air Group operated 92 50-seat regional jets (27 of which are Embraer ERJ-145LRs, the rest a mixture of CRJ100s and CRJ200s), 15 CRJ701ERs, and 39 CRJ900s as well Beechcraft and Bombardier turboprops.
DARREN SHANNON / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
