Mesa Air Group is eyeing additional Bombardier CRJ700s and CRJ900s for its new America West Airlines feeder operation Freedom Airlines, as the company looks to move smaller 50-seat aircraft to its US Airways feeder carriers Mesa Airlines or subsidiary operation CCAir.
Given the current slow sales rate for the 70-seat CRJ700 and stretched 86-seat CRJ900, Mesa chairman Jonathan Ornstein suggests "the time is now right" to begin talking to the Canadian manufacturer about Mesa's 40 outstanding options.
Freedom, after several months of delay, was scheduled to begin operations on 26 October between its Phoenix, Arizona, hub and Fresno, California. The carrier has taken delivery of two CRJ700s, which are the first to be configured in a two-class layout seating 64 passengers, and plans to have nine in service by next May.
Mesa plans to spin off Freedom by offering the current owners of its 32 million shares separate stock in the new carrier as a way of circumventing labour issues with pilots.
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) has been bitterly opposed to the creation of Freedom which, with the arrival of the CRJ900s, threatens to undermine the scope clause now in effect at most carriers restricting the size of regional jets.
Ornstein also finds himself in conflict with ALPA over Charlotte-based CCAir, which he is threatening to shut down from 7 November unless agreement can be reached with the pilots to begin operating regional jets.
Source: Flight International
