Mesa Airlines

Mesa Airlines is a privately held regional flight operator in the United States owned by Mesa Air Group Inc. Currently, it holds alliances with Star Alliance and Oneworld and currently operates the regional marketing brands of American Airline’s American Eagle and United Airline’s United Express.

Mesa is an old airline which was founded and commenced in 1980. Initially known as Mesa Air Shuttle, it was itself a division of JB Aviation. However, after it was sold in 1982, Mesa grew through the acquisition of various airlines, hubs and flight routes. The first airline it acquired was Centennial Airlines in 1987. It added new flight routes to and from various states. It acquired Aspen Airways in 1990, Air Midwest in 1991 and Crown Airways in 1994.

These acquisitions led to the formation of its various airline divisions. In 1995, it formed Desert Sun Airlines that operated only for a year and was subsequently merged with Mesa Airlines. In 1989, the creation of Skyway Airlines was the result of its code share agreement with Midwest Express. Likewise, FloridaGulf Airlines was created after Mesa acquired Air Midwest in 1991. Superior Airlines, also its subdivision was formed in 1994. Go! Airline as its subdivision was formed in 2005 after establishing a code agreement with Mokulele Airlines. Its operations were ceased in 2014. Other former divisions of Mesa include California Pacific Airlines, Liberty Express Airlines and Mountain West Airlines which operated for only a few years during 1990’s.

Apart from Midwest Express and Mokulele, it established code-share agreements with America West Airlines in 1992 to operate as America West Express and with US Airways in 1997 to provide services as US Airways Express.

Mesa Airlines Fleet

Mesa’s fleet consist of 115 different aircrafts with 15 in line to be delivered in subsequent years. A Bombardier CRJ200 with a capacity of 50 economy class seats is dedicated for Mesa Airlines operations. The rest of the fleet is divided between operations for American Eagle and United Express.

American Eagle

Although American Eagle has a rich fleet of 619 different aircrafts, under Mesa’s operations its fleet comprises of sixty-four Bombardier CRJ900 aircrafts, all designed in first and economy class configuration. Thirty-eight aircrafts have a capacity of 79 passengers with 9 seats in firs-class and 70 in economy-class. The rest of its CRJ900 aircrafts comprise of 76 passenger seats of which nineteen have 9 first-class seats while 67 seats reserved for economy-class. Seven of its fleet members consist of 12 first-class and 64 economy class passenger seats.

United Express

Mesa has reserved a fleet of fifty aircrafts to be used for United Express operations. It includes twenty Bombardier CRJ700 and thirty Embraer ERJ-175 aircrafts. The former type has 6 first -lass, 32 premium economy and 32 economy-class passenger seats making thus capacitating a maximum carriage of 70 passengers. The latter aircraft type has 12 seats reserved for first-class, 16 for premium economy and 48 for economy-class allowing it to carry a maximum of 76 passengers at a time.