Mesa Air Group, Inc. is a Nevada Corporation commercial aviation holding company with headquarters at 410 North 44th Street, Suite 700 in the Camelback East area of Phoenix, Arizona, United States." Contact Us ." Mesa Air Group. Retrieved on January 30, 2009. The company operates one regional airline subsidiary: Mesa Airlines which operates as United Express and (until 2023) as American Eagle under contractual agreements with United Airlines and American Airlines respectively.
Mesa was founded on a mesa in Farmington, New Mexico in 1982 by Larry and Janie Risley, a husband and wife team that mortgaged their home to finance their dream to own an airline. Mesa moved its headquarters to Phoenix, Arizona in 1998.
As of June 2022, Mesa operated 167 aircraft, with more than 457 daily departures to 120 cities throughout the U.S., District of Columbia, Canada, Mexico, The Bahamas, and Cuba.
Subsidiaries
Airlines Mesa Airlines, Inc.
Former airlines and subsidiaries Air Midwest Freedom Airlines, Inc. CalPac (California Pacific) CCAir Desert Sun Airlines FloridaGulf Airlines go! Liberty Express Airlines Mountain West Airlines Skyway Airlines Superior Airlines WestAir Holdings, Inc. and WestAir Commuter Airlines Desert Turbine Services Four Corners Aviation Mesa Leasing, Inc. San Juan Pilot Training
History Mesa began in 1980 when JB Aviation, a fixed-base operator at the Four Corners Regional Airport in Farmington, NM, established a charter flight department and Mesa Air Shuttle with scheduled commuter airline service from Farmington to Albuquerque using a five-seat single-engine Piper Saratoga aircraft. A nine-seat Piper Navajo was later added for new service between Farmington and Denver. In late 1981, the Denver flights were discontinued and a new route from Farmington to Grand Junction, CO, and Vernal, UT, was briefly added. In 1982, using $140,000 in capital, Larry Risley, an A&P mechanic with JB Aviation, and his wife Janie,http://www/mesa-air.com, About Mesa, History purchased the airline; by mid 1983, they acquired their first 14-seat Beechcraft 99 turboprop commuter airliner. New service from Albuquerque to Durango, CO, began with the arrival of the second Beech 99 later that year. More Beech 99's were acquired and the company continued to expand from Albuquerque to other cities throughout New Mexico as well as Lubbock, TX.
During its first few years, Mesa found itself in a very competitive environment. Six other carriers competed against Mesa: Air Midwest, Sun West Airlines, Pioneer Airlines, Trans-Colorado Airlines, Airways of New Mexico, and JetAire. As fare wars erupted between the carriers, Mesa was able to survive due to its low cost structure. It performed maintenance in house, many of Mesa's employees performed multiple duties: pilots and mechanics doubled as gate agents and ramp agents.
In 1984, the Civil Aeronautics Board awarded Mesa its first Essential Air Service (EAS) contract, to serve Roswell, Hobbs, and Carlsbad, winning the contract from Air Midwest. A second round of EAS bidding resulted in Mesa winning contracts to serve Silver City, Alamogordo, Las Cruces, Clovis, and Gallup.
By late 1985, Mesa acquired its first Beechcraft 1900 turboprop and began the first scheduled air service to Telluride, CO, as that aircraft had the performance to serve the city's airport which sits at more than 9000 feet above sea level. Service was also added to high altitude Angel Fire, NM, a year later.
By 1987, Mesa had grown from six employees in 1982 to 187 employees; its fleet grew from a single Piper Saratoga in 1980 to one Piper Chieftain and three Beechcraft 99s in 1984 to five Beechcraft 99 and four Beechcraft 1900 turboprops. Of the six competing air carriers, none remained to challenge Mesa in New Mexico by the end of 1987. The airline had built up its Albuquerque hub to 45 departures per day serving 17 cities and providing hourly service to Farmington.Mesa Airlines timetable, October 15, 1987
Mesa continued to grow in 1987. It listed on with an initial public offering of 865,000 shares of stock at $7.50. While it was now operating to all the primary cities in New Mexico, it then expanded outside of the state by acquiring routes in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado from Centennial Airlines as well as adding nonstop flights from Roswell, NM, to DFW. Mesa then acquired a pair of 9-seat Cessna Caravans to serve even smaller cities in New Mexico and established new routes from Albuquerque to Taos and Ruidoso.
To provide a pool of qualified pilots, Mesa established an ab-initio flight training program in 1989 with San Juan College, a local community college.
Acquisitions and mergers
Starting in 1989, Mesa embarked on a series of acquisitions and mergers over the next six years.
In February 1989, Mesa negotiated its first codeshare agreement with Midwest Express and established Skyway Airlines in Milwaukee. In July 1989, StatesWest Airlines failed to take over Mesa by making an offer to purchase all of its common operating stock.
In February 1990, Mesa acquired Aspen Airways' United Express Denver hub, routes, and assets, and negotiated a codeshare agreement with United Airlines. Using these newly acquired routes, Mesa set up a Denver hub flying as United Express. Aspen Airways' BAe 146 and Convair 580 aircraft and its Denver-Aspen route were sold to Air Wisconsin.
Mesa had many changes in 1991; acquiring Air Midwest, its Kansas City hub and a codeshare agreement with USAir Express in July, starting FloridaGulf Airlines serving Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana from its Tampa hub under a USAir Express codeshare in December. It was also in talks to acquire WestAir Commuter Airlines.
In 1992, Mesa completed acquisition of WestAir Commuter Airlines and its hubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle as well as its United codeshare. In October 1992, Mesa negotiated a codeshare agreement with America West for its Phoenix hub to be operated as America West Express.
In 1993, Mesa's codeshare with Midwest Express expired. Midwest Express kept the name Skyway for its future regional of the same name. Using the aircraft from the former Skyway operation, Mesa established Superior Airlines with a Columbus hub operating as America West Express. Mesa created CalPac (California Pacific) with a Los Angeles hub operating as United Express. Both Superior and CalPac were short-lived operations, with both airlines being folded back into Mesa Airlines United Express operations.
In 1994, Mesa acquired Pittsburgh-based Crown Airways. Using the assets from Crown Airways, Mesa set up Liberty Express Airlines with a Pittsburgh hub operating as USAir Express.
In March 1995, Mesa took delivery of its first two regional jets, the Fokker 70, a smaller version of the Fokker 100 jetliner. Mesa created Desert Sun Airlines and operated the two jets from a Phoenix hub to Des Moines and Spokane as America West Express.
Reorganization As Mesa acquired air carriers or expanded by creating new airlines, it grew in a seemingly haphazard manner. From 1989 through 1995, Mesa had grown from one airline with hubs in Albuquerque, Denver, and Phoenix to six separate airlines with hubs throughout the country, though it had as many as eight airlines prior to 1995.Timetables from Mesa Airlines, United Airlines, and US Air Rather than integrating each new acquisition and airline into one integrated company, Mesa continued operating each individual airline independently, with separate labor groups, separate flight, maintenance, and marketing operations, and separate codeshare agreements. This resulted in an unwieldy corporate structure.
In 1992, Mesa created Mesa Holdings Corp to manage the existing Mesa Airlines and its acquisitions. It resulted in the following subsidiaries: Air Midwest (Kansas City) Mesa Airlines America West Express (Phoenix) FloridaGulf Airlines (Tampa) Mesa Airlines (Albuquerque) United Express (Denver) Skyway Airlines (Milwaukee) WestAir Commuter Airlines (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle) San Juan Pilot Training (forerunner to Mesa Pilot Development) Desert Turbine Services
In 1995, Mesa Holdings Corp was renamed Mesa Air Group, and Mesa Airlines was renamed Mountain West Airlines. Mesa Air Group now consisted of the following six airlines and subsidiaries: Air Midwest (Kansas City/USAir Express) Desert Sun Airlines (Phoenix/America West Express) FloridaGulf Airlines (Tampa, Orlando, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia/USAir Express) Liberty Express Airlines (Pittsburgh/USAir Express) Mountain West Airlines, operating as: Mesa Airlines (Albuquerque) United Express (Denver, Los Angeles (former CalPac), Portland, Seattle) America West Express (Phoenix) WestAir Commuter Airlines (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle/United Express) Desert Turbine Services Four Corners Aviation Mesa Pilot Development Regional Aircraft Services
In 1996, further company reorganization consolidated the separate flight dispatch functions of Desert Sun, FloridaGulf, and Mountain West airlines into one location in Farmington. All flight training facilities and human resources were centralized in Fort Worth. Since the mergers had created a diverse mix of aircraft types, Mesa proceeded to simplify the number of aircraft types operated from six (Short 360, British Aerospace BAe Jetstream 31, Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia, Beechcraft 1900, de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8, Fokker 70) to three (B1900, Dash 8, Canadair CRJ). Mesa relocated aircraft to place all airplanes of the same type in a base, with the Jetstreams and Brasilias flying in the West and the B1900s flying elsewhere. This also allowed the consolidation of maintenance facilities, since the facilities no longer needed to service all the different types of aircraft Mesa operated. To replace the Fokker aircraft, Mesa signed an agreement with Bombardier to purchase 16 Canadair Regional Jets (CRJ) with options for 32 more.
The six pilot groups had voted to unionize in 1994. In 1996, the pilot groups of the six airlines were merged into one common seniority list, and under the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) representation, the pilots and Mesa negotiated and ratified a five-year collective bargaining agreement.
When Mesa started taking deliveries of the CRJ in 1997, it returned to two Fokker 70 jets and placed the CRJs in service in Phoenix. Mesa started an independent hub providing CRJ service from Fort Worth Meacham to Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and from Colorado Springs to Nashville and San Antonio. This effort proved to be unsuccessful and the service from Fort Worth ended in less than a year.American Express Skyguide, March 1998
Difficulties and loss of the United codeshare
Mesa and United entered into discussions in July 1997 to renew WestAir's codeshare agreement, which was due to expire in May 1998. Mesa and United could not agree on new terms. As negotiations delayed into the summer, United started awarding WestAir's routes to SkyWest Airlines. Finally with negotiations at an impasse, United announced in November 1997 that it would not renew the codeshare with WestAir. Mesa attempted to reengage United and ask United to reconsider to no avail.