Mesa Air Group is encountering difficulties in meeting its contractual obligations to provide Bombardier Dash 8 feeder services for Delta Air Lines at New York’s Kennedy airport, after the turboprops acquired for the operation proved unready for service.
Under its three-year contract with Delta, Mesa’s Freedom Airlines subsidiary is to operate 12 37-seat Dash 8s on regional services from the airport. Initial services began on 5 July, but Mesa’s Dash 8 ramp-up has been slow, says Mesa chairman and chief executive Jonathan Ornstein.
In a recorded message to employees, Ornstein admits the turboprops “were surprisingly hard to come by”, that the Dash 8s eventually sourced “were literally pulled out of the tundra in Canada” and that their flight data recorders required upgrades to met US Federal Aviation Administration requirements. Any interruption “will be temporary and [we] should have this resolved in a few weeks”, adds Ornstein. Delta says the ramp-up should be complete by November.
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| Mesa found Dash 8 turboprops surprisingly hard to come by |
Source: Flight International
