Mesa Air Group may place a sixth Bombardier CRJ200 in the Hawaiian inter-island market in 2010 now that it has taken over Mokulele Airlines' flights from Republic Airways Holdings subsidiary Shuttle America, Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein says.
While Mesa presently operates five 50-seaters in Hawaii, it may add one of its parked aircraft to inter-island service this coming spring, he says.
Effective today, Shuttle America's three 70-seat Embraer E-170s were replaced by CRJ200s operated by Mesa inter-island subsidiary go!.
Mesa rebranded its go! aircraft as Mokulele 'go!' though Mesa will continue to market both brands and maintain their web sites separately, Ornstein says, noting some 40,000 passengers flew Mokulele in September.
Passenger demand at Mokulele and other inter-island operators was not strong enough to support the capacity in Hawaii, so down gauging aircraft should help, he says.
The regional airline chief adds he wasn't sure if Mokulele ever got above 50% load factors. "Clearly [you] can't make money at those load factors," Ornstein explains.
In addition to mulling more aircraft in inter-island service, Ornstein is looking into contracting with Mokulele to take over 'go!' ground handling operations, which are currently outsourced.
It also remains to be seen what role Mokulele CEO Scott Durgin-a senior executive at Republic-will hold in the venture.
Ornstein says he expects Durgin will "remain involved at a high level position".
Moving forward, there will be 63 furloughs at Mokulele but details such as affected employee groups are still being determined, a Mokulele spokesman says.
Mesa holds a 75% stake in the new inter-island venture while Mokulele's shareholders will take the balance, with Republic the majority shareholder in Mokulele.
This is not Mokulele's first dealing with Mesa. The airline began codesharing with Mesa in February 2007 but Mesa ended the deal early this March after Republic took at 50% stake in struggling Mokulele.
The ownership stake followed Republic negotiating a deal with Mokulele last year for Shuttle to operate four E-170s on inter-island routes, and also loaned the Hawaiian carrier $8 million.
Shuttle began flying E-170s for Mokulele in November 2008 but the carrier only flew three aircraft to Kahului, Kona, Hilo, Lihue and Hoolehua because delivery of the fourth E-170 was deferred until 2010 due to the economic downturn.
Mesa's go! unit began inter-island service in mid-2006, connecting Honolulu with Hilo, Kahului, Kona and Lihue.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
