So, bottom line and in all sincerity, what facts don't I have straight?
All dates within a couple of months. May be missing some details:
08-2000 ++ Last Avro arrives. We now have 36 jets (Avros) and about 72 props (Saabs).
06-2001 ++ Contract negotiations begin. Company wants a Zero Cost Contract.
09-2001 ++ 9/11 = all hiring stopped. Stagnation started. FOs on the verge on an upgrade won't see the upgrade for another 3-4 years.
10-2002 ++ Still stagnate. Still negotiating contract. Company recently formed MAIR Holdings and made Mesaba Airlines a subsidiary. MAIR buys Big Sky Airlines in Montana, viewed as a thinly veiled threat to shift all planes and flying to them if we didn't start caving in to company demands. (On a side note, we went from 36 Avros to 35 when a couple of mechanics plowed #28 into a jetbridge.)
10-2003 ++ Contract negotiations still going nowhere. Company threatens to park all jets and become a 49-Saab all prop airline. Company begins to park Avros.
12-2003 ++ After our 30-day cooling off period expires, the company shuts down the airline in anticipation of our strike. We never actually walked off the job, so we continued to get paid for a few days while the final agreement was reached.
01-2004 ++ New contract signed. Magically, NWA announces the return of our Avros, and the 5 or so parked in the desert return to service.
2004-2005 ++ Somewhere in late '04 to early '05 our upgrades began again. I can't remember why... maybe we were getting more Saabs from PCL? We still had only 35 jets (Avros). Average seniority for a Saab upgrade drops to about 6.5 years in late '04 and 5 years in early 2005.
04-2005 ++ The company announces that we are getting 15 CRJ-200's. For the first time in half a decade morale is high at Mesaba. (It didn't last long.)
09-2005 ++ NWA and Delta declare bankruptcy on the same day in front of the same judge in NYC.
10-2005 ++ Mesaba Airlines is drooling at the prospect of doing the same, but we have no debt. No problem: we shift $148M to MAIR Holdings, sign a "services" agreement to pay the holding company some obscene 7-figure service fee, arrange for NWA to miss a single payment to us, and problem solved! The airline is bankrupt (even though we're profitable), and the request is made to slash our contract. Pay no attention to the fact that Big Sky has operated at a loss every quarter since they were purchased while we posted a profit during each of those same quarters... we are bankrupt and they are not. The CRJ-200 deliveries stop after we receive just 2 aircraft. We fly a fleet of 2 CRJs for a few months, and then a fleet of just 1 for another year or so (the 2nd one became the aircraft used to keep the ACA/Independence certificate active while Compass was developed.) PCL took delivery of new CRJ-200s after we canceled our deliveries, but these were not our planes. I'm still a little fuzzy what happened there... at some point I just stopped caring.
12-2005 ++ Most of the 5 to 7 year pilots who just recently upgraded are pushed back to the right seat. The process of parking all of our jets (35 Avros and 2 CRJ-200s) begins in 2006. 10 to 15 year pilots are flying props again.
2006 ++ Even as all of our Avros and many of our Saabs are parked, and we become an airline with 49 Saabs and 1 CRJ, our labor groups continue fighting the fake bankruptcy.
12-2006 ++ Under threat of concessions forced by the bankruptcy judge, we vote in pay cuts with some snap back provisions. 72-hours later NWA announces that we are receiving new jets (they didn't even try to make it look unrelated).
05-2007 ++ 7 to 8 year FOs are just beginning to upgrade again.
09-2007 ++ The first CRJ-900 arrives for proving runs. Somewhere soon after the announcement is made that we will finally receive 15 CRJ-200s after we canceled deliveries two years earlier. The planes are coming from PCL, but these are not our planes because we never actually took delivery of our planes. I'm still a little fuzzy what happened there... at some point I just stopped caring. NWA pulls the strings and we're all pawns in their game.
06-2008 ++ 8-9 year pilots finally see the left seat of a jet, and life looks good from the outside... but morale remains low. None of us trust that the good times will continue. We're all waiting for stuff to be taken away again.
I am sure I have some dates wrong, and I might have missed a few milestones... but this should give you an idea.
To address the original point, in late April 2004 we were getting 15
firm orders of CRJ-200s with options for 25 more (or was it 35 more?). Those firm orders disappeared 6-months later when we entered our fake bankruptcy. Furloughs followed.
