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Founded 1982
History
Mesa began when JB Aviation, a fixed base operator at Farmington's Four Corners Regional Airport, established a charter flight department in 1980. In 1982, using $140,000 in capital, Larry Risley, an A&P mechanic with JB Aviation, and his wife Janie, purchased the flight department and its single Piper Chieftain aircraft, and established Mesa Air Shuttle, flying a single route between Farmington and Albuquerque.
During its first few years, Mesa found itself in a very competitive environment as it slowly expanded throughout New Mexico. Six other carriers competed against Mesa: Air Midwest, Sun West Airlines, Pioneer Airlines, JetAir, Trans-Colorado Airlines and Airways of New Mexico. 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, and Gallup.
By 1987, Mesa had grown from six employees in 1982 to 187 employees: from a single Chieftain in 1982 to three Beechcraft 99s in 1984 to five Beechcraft 99s and four Beechcraft 1900s. Of the six competing air carriers in 1982, none remained to challenge Mesa in New Mexico by 1987.
Mesa continued to grow in 1987. It listed on NASDAQ: MESA with an initial public offering of 865,000 shares of stock at $7.50. It expanded outside New Mexico by acquiring routes in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado from Centennial Airlines.
To provide a pool of trained, qualified pilots, in 1989, Mesa established an ab-initio flight training program with San Juan College, a local community college. By the end of the 1980s Mesa poised itself for future growth and expansion.
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Acquisitions and mergers
Starting in 1989, Mesa embarked on a series of acquisitions and mergers over the next six years that would known by the airline industry watchers as "Mesa's a deal a year growth."
In February 1989, Mesa negotiated its first codeshare agreement with Midwest Express and established Skyway Airlines in Milwaukee. In July 1989, StatesWest Airlines attempted to take over Mesa by making an offer to purchase all of the common operating stock of Mesa, which was rejected.
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 F-70. Mesa created Desert Sun Airlines and operated the two jets from a Phoenix hub to Des Moines and Spokane as America West Express.
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Reorganization
As Mesa acquired air carriers or expanded by creating new airlines, it grew in a seemingly haphazard manner. By 1995, Mesa had grown from one airline with hubs in Albuquerque and Phoenix in 1989, to six separate airlines with hubs throughout the country, though it had as many as eight airlines prior to 1995. 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
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 (Shorts 360, Jetstream, Brasilia, 1900, Dash 8, Fokker) to three (1900, Dash 8, CRJ). Mesa relocated aircraft to place all airplanes of the same type in a base, with the Jetstreams and Brasilias flying in the West, 1900s 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, Colorado Springs, and from Colorado Springs to Nashville. This effort proved to be unsuccessful and the service from Fort Worth ended in less than a year.
[edit]Difficulties and loss of the United codeshare
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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.
Mesa experienced many customer complaints regarding its Denver United Express operation. The level of complaints resulted in a Congressional inquiry of the airline's performance. Mesa experienced increased costs the Denver hub as a result of moving from Denver Stapleton airport to the new Denver International Airport and as a result of a decrease in the average fare Mesa received from United. In efforts to reduce its exposure to the high costs and mounting losses, Mesa announced that it would reduce and terminate service from its Denver hub in September 1997. United charged that the reduction and termination of service was a material breach of the codeshare agreement. Naturally Mesa disagreed. Again, as with WestAir, agreement could not be reached and United and Mesa mutually agreed to terminate the codeshare.
The effect of the codeshare termination with WestAir and Mesa was immediate. The termination put 87 (21 Jetstreams, 29 Brasilias, and 37 Beech 1900s) of Mesa's 184 aircraft out of service or 47% of its total aircraft. Mesa took immediate steps, parking the Jetstreams and Brasilias. It sold 10 Brasilias to Skywest. Mesa exercised the option to purchase 16 additional CRJs and traded in the remaining Brasilias to Bombardier for CRJs. Mesa sold 24 Beech 1900s to Great Lakes, and returned the remaining Beech 1900s to Beechcraft/Raytheon. WestAir ceased operations in 1998.
Mesa experienced difficulties with its other two codeshares as well. Flight crew shortages and scheduling problems resulted in the cancellation of many flights. From October 1997 to January 1998, Mesa parked aircraft and canceled flights to alleviate the crew shortage problem. Part of the crew shortage problem was related to the consolidation of flight operations in Farmington, and the training associated with transitioning the air carrier from a Part 135 operator to a Part 121 operator as required by a FAA mandate. America West canceled its codeshare with Mesa in 1997.
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Turnaround
In 1998, Jonathan Ornstein was appointed CEO of Mesa Air Group. Ornstein had been Risley's assistant from 1989 to 1995 during Mesa's initial expansion. Larry Risley remained on Mesa's board of directors. All corporate officers were replaced and the company headquarters was relocated from Farmington to Phoenix. The flight training and human resources departments were also moved to Phoenix. Its plan to return to profitability focused on several fronts: its aircraft, its codeshares, and customer service
One of Mesa's problems during the turnaround was that it operated over 180 turboprops. It began consolidating all of its remaining Beechcraft 1900 turboprops into Air Midwest, completing the consolidation in 2000. It embarked on a plan to reequip with jet aircraft. In 1999, Mesa arranged to purchase 36 Embraer 145 jets with options for 64 additional ERJs. In 2001, Mesa arranged to purchase 20 CRJ-700s and 20 CRJ-900s with options for 80 additional CRJ-700/900s. Five of the CRJ-700 orders were subsequently converted to CRJ-900s. As Mesa took delivery of the larger CRJ-700s and CRJ-900s, scope restrictions with US Airways prevented Mesa from operating the larger aircraft in its Mesa Airlines subsidiary. Mesa created a separate subsidiary, called Freedom Airlines to operate these aircraft. As the scope restriction at US Airways was removed during US Airways' bankruptcy reorganization and after Mesa settled with its pilot union regarding operating Freedom as a separate air carrier, Freedom's aircraft and pilots were merged back into Mesa Airlines in 2003.
As Mesa completed its restructuring, it proceeded to reestablish it codeshares. In 1998, it negotiated a new codeshare with America West and expanded its codeshare with USAir. In 2001, Mesa reestablished a codeshare agreement with Midwest Express for its Air Midwest Kansas City hub. Also that same year, Mesa negotiated an agreement with Frontier to operate as Frontier JetExpress out of Denver. The Frontier codeshare ended in 2003. In 2003, Mesa reestablished a codeshare agreement with United, operating as United Express. In 2005, Mesa negotiated a codeshare agreement with Delta for Freedom Airlines to operate as a Delta Connection carrier.
By 1999, Mesa returned to profitability. Mesa acquired CCAir and its USAir Express codeshare in 1999. It continued to operate CCAir as a separate operation. By 2002, CCAir ceased operations due to high costs and its assets and employees were absorbed into Mesa. The latest merger attempt was in 2003, when Mesa offered to acquire Atlantic Coast Airlines. Its offer was refused, and ACA went on to operate independently as Independence Air and later ceased operations in January, 2006. In 2006, Mesa began operating in Hawaii under the brand go! and established a codeshare agreement with Mokulele Airlines, where Mokulele will operate as a go! Express carrier.
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Hawaiian market entrance and related lawsuits
In 2004, Mesa Air Group met with Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines, both in bankruptcy at the time, and reviewed operational records and forecasts, but ultimately decided not to acquire or invest in either carrier. In 2006, after Mesa announced plans for its "go!" sub-branded airline in Hawaii, Hawaiian Airlines sued to block the launch, claiming that Mesa had violated a confidentiality agreement. Aloha Airlines filed a similar suit against Mesa later that year.
In September 2007, the CFO of Mesa Air Group was placed on administrative suspension as irregularities were investigated during the Hawaiian Airlines case. In an announcement, Mesa Air Group CEO Jonathan Ornstein assured shareholders and investors that "the alleged misconduct does not involve the financial controls, financial statements or operations of the Company."[7] The judge overseeing the Mesa go! case, however, ruled Mesa destroyed evidence.and ordered Mesa Air Group to pay an $80 million interest bearing settlement with interest, along with legal fees, to Hawaiian Airlines.
Aloha Airlines ceased operations in March 2008, and the Aloha Airlines suit was settled in November 2008. Mesa agreed to pay $2 million, 10% of Mesa's common stock, and provide travel benefits on go! for former Aloha employees. Initially the settlement agreement included a provision whereby Mesa Air Group could license the Aloha name, but a federal judge rejected that agreement on the basis of Mesa's alleged misconduct in the Hawaii market.
Mokulele acquisition
In October 2009, it was announced Mesa Air Group's subsidiary "go!" would be taking over all of the Hawaii flying done by Mokulele Airlines and R.A.H.'s Shuttle America. The combine operation was rebranded as go! Mokulele. Mokulele operated a fleet of 4 Cessna Caravan aircraft that were retained in the combined operation, but the Embraer 170 aircraft operated by Shuttle America on behalf of Mokulele were removed from Hawaii service.
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Bankruptcy filing
On January 5, 2010, Mesa Air Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York City bankruptcy court. The company indicated that it will continue operations as normal. The company's Go! Mokulele subsidiary was not included in the filing,Per bankruptcy records, upon Mesa Air Group's exit from bankruptcy, US Airways Group will own a 10 percent stake in the operation. The company emerged from bankruptcy protection on March 1, 2011, as a privately held company with a new board of directors and having eliminated 100 excess aircraft.
Mokulele divestiture
In December 2011, it was announced Mesa Air Group had divested itself of Mokulele's Cessna Caravan aircraft and operations. In June 2012, Mesa began the process of dropping the "go! Mokulele" name and reverting to "go!".
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Freedom Airlines, Inc. was an American FAA Part 121 certificated air carrier operating under air carrier certificate number FDKA087K issued on April 1, 2002. The Nevada Corporation was headquartered in Irving, Texas and is a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group. It operated flights as Delta Connection for Delta Air Lines serving Delta's hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, KY, near Cincinnati, OH using EMB 145 aircraft. Freedom's base has been moved to Cincinnati from New York City in July 2009. Freedom previously operated the CRJ-900 aircraft as Delta Connection as well, however, this contract has been canceled and all aircraft and orders will be transferred to Eagan, MN-based Mesaba Airlines and Atlanta, GA-based Atlantic Southeast Airlines as well as Pinnacle Airlines.
The airline was established in March 2002 and started operations in October 2002. It was the launch customer for the Bombardier CRJ-900. The airline was started so that Mesa Air Group could fulfill its contractual obligations to operate the CRJ-900 as America West Express for America West Airlines. Establishing Freedom was necessary as Mesa Airlines was also operating as US Airways Express under a code share agreement for US Airways. US Airways' collective bargaining agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association prohibited contract carrier code share arrangements with regional jet carriers, if that carrier operated aircraft with more than 70 seats. Mesa Airlines, therefore, could not operate as US Airways Express and operate the
A controversial factor of the original Freedom Airlines was the way Mesa Airlines Management went about staffing it. Freedom was originally established as a non-union airline under the objection of the Mesa ALPA MEC. The initial cadre of pilots brought on to staff the operation became known and the Freedom “A-Lister’s” and were perceived in a very negative light by the Mesa pilots who remained on property. The pilots were enticed over, mostly by promises of a quick upgrade. Later when Freedom was drawn down, the pilots were folded back into the Mesa seniority list at their original seniority number much to the consternation of the pilots who remained loyal to the original Mesa list.
Later on, when Freedom was resurrected, it was staffed by rank and file Mesa pilots and the name Freedom lived on truly as a shell entity but was staffed and operated by Mesa personnel.
CRJ-900.
Initially Freedom operated the Bombardier CRJ-700 and CRJ-900 on behalf of America West Airlines. Once US Airways' pilot scope limitation was relaxed, Mesa transferred the operation of all of Freedom's regional jets to Mesa Airlines. Once this transfer was complete Freedom placed 1 Beech 1900D turboprop on its certificate in order to keep the certificate active. No scheduled flights occurred during this period with the Beech 1900, but it was used as a spare aircraft for Air Midwest aircraft flying out of Phoenix under an America West Express codeshare as well as a spare aircraft for Mesa Airlines' Dash-8-200 aircraft operating under a contract for America West. In October 2005, Freedom Airlines began operations as Delta Connection.
ERJ-145 Contract
On April 7, 2008, Mesa Air Group, the parent company of Freedom Airlines, entered litigation about contractual obligations with Delta Air Lines. Delta attempted to terminate the ERJ-145 contract due to supposed failures to meet completion in 3 of the last 6 months. On May 29, 2008, a federal judge blocked Delta from terminating Freedom's regional flying contract which, according to parent company Mesa Air Group would have forced it to file for bankruptcy protection by July 20 and cut 700 jobs or 14 percent of its work force. Since then, the ERJ-145 fleet has been reduced to 22 operating aircraft along with 5 spares.
CRJ-900 Contract
In August 2008, Mesa announced that Delta was terminating Freedom's contract to operate CRJ-900 aircraft. As with the ERJ-145 contract, Mesa alleged that the cancellation was driven by Delta's intention to cut capacity rather than Freedom's failure to meet operational performance standards, as Delta claims. However, unlike the ERJ-145 contract, Delta's attempt to cancel the contract was successful. The seven CRJ-900s were returned to Delta with no further financial obligation to Mesa. They were being operated by Pinnacle Airlines until they receive the last of their CRJ-900s orders. After that, 5 are operated by Mesaba Airlines. The other 2 are operated by Atlanta based Atlantic Southeast Airlines.
Dash 8-100 Contract
Delta Contracted Mesa Airlines to establish a regional feed, initially in many different airports in the Northeast, but eventually consolidated down the base to an operation out of JFK. The contract was fulfilled with Dash 8 100's almost all of which came out of storage with one coming out of a museum. Later on it was discovered that the purpose of using one of the slowest performing turboprops available was to quite literally slow down JetBlue’s operation in JFK and affect their DOT arrival times.
Shutdown
In May 2010, a federal judge ruled against regional carrier Mesa Air Group in the long-running dispute with Delta Air Lines over the larger carrier's right to cancel a regional jet service contract.[8] Mesa said in a statement that it may now have to lay off 500 workers at its Freedom Airline subsidiary because 22 of its regional jets will be without work. On August 31, 2010, the last flight for Freedom Airlines operated.
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History
Regional carrier Mesa Airlines started Go!'s inter-island operations on June 9, 2006, using five Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft.
In September 2006, the airline announced that it had reached an agreement with Mokulele Airlines, whereby Mokulele would operate Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft to Kapalua, Molokai, and Lanai under the name Go!Express. Service began with flights from Kapalua to Honolulu, Kahului, and Kona on April 17, 2007. Service began for flights to Molokai on July 21, 2007 and flights to Lanai on October 6, 2007. Following Mokulele's agreement with Republic Airways Holdings to have that company operate flights in Hawaii using 70-seat jets, Mesa announced that it would be terminating the Go!Express agreement with Mokulele in April 2009.[6] The airline later accelerated plans to terminate the agreement with Mokulele, and ended the code-share on March 24, 2009, replacing it with a new agreement with Island Air that allowed Mesa to sell existing Island Air flights with the Go!Express name.
On March 17, 2014, Mesa announced that Go! would cease service on April 1, 2014, with its aircraft re-deployed to support Mesa's operations on the U.S. mainland. The airline also stated that a long term increase in the cost of fuel had prevented the operation from being profitable.
Lawsuits over formation
In February 2006, before the airline had started flying, Hawaiian Airlines filed a complaint for injunctive relief. In its complaint, Hawaiian Airlines noted that Mesa Air Group had been a potential investor during Hawaiian's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and as such, had access to confidential business data that it alleged Mesa then used in developing Go!. Hawaiian claimed that the confidentiality agreement under which potential investors were given access to the data prohibited the use of that information to compete with Hawaiian for a period of two years.
In a memo explaining his decision to rule against Hawaiian's request for a preliminary injunction, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris wrote that e-mail made public during Hawaiian Airlines lawsuit raised "real doubts about the propriety of Mesa's conduct."
In March 2006, Mesa filed a counter suit, claiming that Hawaiian was violating antitrust law by trying to keep Mesa out of Hawaii, using legal maneuvers to prevent Mesa from offering fares below the prevailing fares offered by Hawaiian. Mesa also alleged that Hawaiian had coerced two freight forwarders into refusing parts and equipment Mesa wanted to ship to Hawaii for the new airline. Faris dismissed the counter suit on December 8, 2006, and at that time set an opening trial date on September 25, 2007.
In October 2006, Aloha Airlines parent Aloha Airgroup filed a lawsuit similar to Hawaiian's, claiming that Mesa received confidential information during Aloha's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and improperly used it to enter the Hawaii inter-island market with the intent of driving Aloha out of business.
On March 20, 2008, Aloha Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Citing record high fuel prices and inter-island competition with Go!, it ceased passenger operation 11 days later.
As the trial date approached, it became known that Mesa's chief financial officer, George "Peter" Murnane III, had e-mailed an acquaintance about a week after Hawaiian filed suit, first asking for information about how to delete files in such a way that they could not be discovered, then confirming that the files in question were deleted. Mesa placed Murnane on paid administrative leave on September 22, 2007. Hawaiian contended that Murnane deleted the files maliciously in an attempt to destroy evidence that would show that Mesa improperly used confidential data. Mesa contended that Murnane accidentally deleted the files in question in an attempt to remove pornographic material from his computer.
On September 27, in a pretrial hearing, Faris preliminarily ruled that Mesa had misused confidential information in setting up Go!, and failed to return or destroy confidential data acquired during the bankruptcy proceedings. "The misuse was a substantial factor in Mesa's decision on entering the Hawaii market," said Faris. Faris, however, deferred any decision on damages pending the outcome of the trial, saying it still needed to be decided whether the information existed in the public domain. Following the hearing which lasted from September 28 to October 4, Faris ruled on October 30 that Mesa had misused the confidential information and ordered Mesa to pay Hawaiian $80 million, while rejecting Hawaiian's request to bar Go! from selling tickets for one year. Following the ruling, Mesa requested a retrial claiming it had recovered the previously lost evidence on a third hard drive. On December 13, Faris denied the request on the basis that new evidence would likely not change the outcome of the trial, and the airline planned to proceed with its appeal of the decision to US District Court. On April 30, 2008, the two airlines announced a settlement had been reached whereby Mesa would withdraw its appeal of the judgment and would pay Hawaiian $52.5 million.
Name Change to Aloha
On November 28, 2008, Go!'s parent company, Mesa Air Group, announced that it had reached an agreement with Yucaipa Cos., the former majority holder of Aloha Airlines, to settle Aloha's lawsuit. Among the terms of the agreement was that Yucaipa would license the Aloha Airlines name to Mesa, which would rebrand the Go! operation as Aloha Airlines. While Yucaipa was the successful high bidder for the rights to Aloha's name, bankruptcy judge Lloyd King temporarily blocked the deal and postponed a hearing on the deal until February 19, in order to give supporters and opponents time to respond. On March 3, 2009, bankruptcy judge Lloyd King blocked the sale of Aloha's name and brand on the grounds that the auction was not public and must be reheld. On May 14, 2009, he blocked Mesa from rebranding Go! as Aloha.
Name change to Go! Mokulele
In October 2009, Mesa Air Group and Republic Airways Holdings merged their competing subsidiaries, Go! and Mokulele Airlines, into a joint venture, go! Mokulele. Mesa's CRJ-200 aircraft continued to operate jet service, supplemented by Mokulele's Cessna 208 Grand Caravan turboprop aircraft. Embraer 170 aircraft, operated on behalf of Mokulele by Republic subsidiary Shuttle America, were removed from Hawaii service. Mesa maintained a 75% stake in the joint venture, with Republic holding the remaining 25%. Mokulele aircraft remained on the Mokulele operating certificate, while the go! Mokulele aircraft remained on the Mesa Airlines operating certificate.
During the concluding months of 2011 it was announced the complete divesture of the Mokulele Airlines turboprop operations from Mesa Air Group's joint venture with Republic Airways Holdings. In June 2012, Mesa began the process of dropping the "go! Mokulele" name and reverting to "go!".
2008 incident and investigation
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The agreement to form Kunpeng Airlines was signed in December 2006, and service began in October 2007. Kunpeng operated both passenger and cargo service as well as charter flights. The airline originally flew Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft which were leased from Mesa Air Group. The airline's livery was made up of red, white, and gold and the name derives from a mythical Chinese bird.
In August 2008, Kunpeng moved its headquarters and operating base to the city of Zhengzhou. Kunpeng was operating at a financial loss and it was hoped that the move would bring the airline into profit. Kungpeng planned on having 200 aircraft and operating 900 daily flights by 2016.
In August 2008, Mesa Air Group stated that they intended to sell all of their shares in Kunpeng to their partner Shenzhen Airlines.
As of June 2009, Mesa Air Group has sold its financial stake in Kunpeng Airlines and all the leased CRJ 200's have been returned to the US.
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On September 13, 2013, Mesa announced an agreement with United Airlines to add an additional 30 Embraer 175 jets into service over the next two years. At the same time the agreement extended the contract of existing CRJ 700 in operation with United to 2019. The company launched service of the first of 30 new Embraer 175 E-Jets in its United Express operation from Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
