Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A Successful Partnership With Mesa Airlines and The Mesa Air Group


There's one side of business that is consistent with the airline industry, and that's the power of alliances. This was one thing that Mesa picked up on at an early stage in their history, as within two years of starting the business they had already made a deal on their very first code share alliance. This has been the hallmark of Mesa as they continued to pursue more partnerships that allowed them to expand. Despite the fact they are just a carrier in the US, they have been in this field for over thirty years. Mesa have turned a profit in every quarter since the end of the year 2001. Here are some interesting facts about Mesa Airlines and Mesa Air Group.

Back in 1980 Mesa Airlines was born thanks to two people, Larry and Jane Risley. For the next 5 years Mesa Airlines (or Mesa Air Shuttle, as it was renamed in 1982) had flights from both New Mexico and Albuquerque. After some time the company relocated their main hub to Arizona and started looking for partners to share codes with. The practice of code sharing agreements is extremely common within the airlines industry and all major and minor airlines do it. In '92 Mesa and America West Airlines came to an agreement to share codes.

Mesa is just one of a few airlines that are interrelated due to the interest in the Mesa Air Group.

One such relative of Mesa is go! Mokulele which is a regional carrier providing service in the Hawaiian Islands. This partner airline operates a separate fleet of Bombardier CRJ 200 aircraft, and they fly out of their hub in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mesa initially created "go" in 2006, then obtained a code share venture with Mokulele Airlines. This step gave them a positive edge because they could offer flights to Hawaiian cities that could not handle jets.

What happened on 9/11 caused a massive amount of strain to hit the airline industry. A few months after 9/11, a number of airlines had to seek bankruptcy protection. To ensure minimal losses, Mesa Airlines quickly came up with a number of steps to put into action. Everything that was making them little profit was eliminated. The next thing they did was make their costs much less wherever they could, and they were able to do this without dramatically hurting their services. To finally get their operations back to making a profit they decided to use their code sharing agreements. Their end result has been profit for every fiscal quarter since the end of 2001.

Mesa Airlines came out of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2011, and they their finances were in good condition. Mesa's services have continued to turn a profit for the company as their services reach all over the US. To make sure that valuable people with experience are running Mesa, they have drafted in important management personnel.

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