Mesa Freefall

[MONKEY]

It is now 11:15 am Eastern time. The market has been open for 1 hour 15 minutes and MESA shares have been selling like hotcakes. The average daily volume is 364,219. Today 626,328 shares have already traded hands. The stock is down 9.22%. Market cap is now 34.4%.

I think if or when UAL gives them the boot it will be all over.

 

[eaglefly]

It is now 11:15 am Eastern time. The market has been open for 1 hour 15 minutes and MESA shares have been selling like hotcakes. The average daily volume is 364,219. Today 626,328 shares have already traded hands. The stock is down 9.22%. Market cap is now 34.4%.

I think if or when UAL gives them the boot it will be all over.

Wouldn't that be wonderful ?

UAL doesn't need them anyway........they do more harm then good.

Give them the boot and snuff this turkey.

 

[machaf]

34.4 Million not %

 

[Fltlvls]

I think if or when UAL gives them the boot it will be all over.[/quote]

And just who could take over that much flying and where would they get the airplanes....if you think Mesa would lease their ERJs to someone who is taking their flying i think that will not happen.

 

[MONKEY]

Sorry, it I meant $34.4 million. I just get a little excited watching the scourge plummet.

XJT has a few kicking around that could pick up the flying.


Update 12:15 Eastern time 960,151 shares traded. down 12%. Market cap $33.33 million.

 

[go!ng for broke]

Thats $1.25 per share

 

[go!ng for broke]

Who did all ATA, Aloha and skybus flying? It's OK! America will be just fine. How does this sound? "MESA SUCKED"!!

 

[asa rat]

How does this sound? "MESA SUCKED"!!

Waaa Haaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaa! That's going to be good

 

[WalterSobchak]

How does this sound? "MESA SUCKED"!!

Glorious!

 

[logic]

Rumor around United is Mesa is gonna get the rug pulled out from them...

 

[TAWS]

Will it be weeks or months????

Jump now, don't get caught listening to the piano music as the bow comes out of the water!

Don't worry about the training contract, it'll all be a moot point real soon!

Oh, BTW, DO NOT LISTEN TO THE MEC! These guys will lead you down a path to nowhere! ALPA serves up plenty of koolaid of it's own making. Just put yourself and your family's interests first and get out ASAP!

 

[buscap]

You guys are really screwing this one up.

The pilots at Mesa are union members.

Most likely their slack will be picked up by non-union Skywest: A pilot group which has been the beneficiary for many years of ALPA induced profession raising improvements. A pilot group that refuses to contribute to the profession. In short, a bunch of professional freeloaders.

The Mesa pilots certainly have their own list of problems and have allowed themselves to be manipulated to management's benefit, but their actions pale in comparison to the pilots of Skywest.

Be careful who you are rooting for and against.

 

[JetPilot_Mike]

Let's get rid of Mesa and keep some 737's.

 

[MONKEY]

Hey Koolaid man!

You guys are really screwing this one up.


The Mesa pilots certainly have their own list of problems and have allowed themselves to be manipulated to management's benefit, but their actions pale in comparison to the pilots of Skywest.

You must be drunk with the ALPA Koolaid! or maybe you are joking.

ALPA may have it's place, but thinking that SkyWest has hurt the industry more than MESA is insane.

By the way, Express Jet will be the winner, at least in the short term.

 

[TAWS]

The free market will prevail on this one.

ALPA allowed the pos contract that MESAhas today - They signed off on it!
Pax will pay more for a ticket and DEMAND more service than before, hence the fact that MESA has no place in this industry anymore. SkyWest pilots seem alot happier than MESA people - ask yourself why ?????
It's not about union/non union - I used to think it was. It's about mngt and whether they are in it for the long run, or if they are only interested in running a sweatshop.

 

[Lampshade]

Plane Business has Mesa on Death Watch!!

An excerpt from the PlaneBusiness Banter - 04/04/08

The Titanic Watch Gets Really Busy

Editor's Note: I was going to re-edit this, given the events of Friday night, but hey, after re-reading it, I figured it was better to leave things as they were.

This industry now finds itself in one sad state of affairs. And hey, listening to Lehman Brothers' analyst Gary Chase didn't help my mood much last week out in Phoenix as he made the statement that "With [the effect of] fuel, it's like this is three recessions at once," he said. "And then, we also have a recession."

Great.

Needless to say, between the time I first mapped out our revival of our "Titanic Watch" two weeks ago and this week, some of the airlines on the list couldn't wait. They just went ahead and hit the ocean floor with a sickening thud.

There's really no secret in trying to figure out what is important in this current environment. As we have written here before -- it's cash. But right behind cash is an airline's fuel burn, and/or the airline's aircraft ownership costs.

This point was made clear a few weeks ago when Merrill Lynch analyst Mike Linenberg put together his chart showing just which two airlines would still be profitable with oil at $110 a barrel. That odd couple? Southwest Airlines and Allegiant. Yes, Allegiant. The airline that flies those gas guzzling MD-80s.

Why? Because right now Southwest has the drop-dead fuel hedges and Allegiant has the low aircraft ownership costs. Or to put it another way, if you don't pay much for an airplane, you can run through a lot of fuel before you get up to the same ownership costs of a brand spanking new Boeing 737.

As Gary Chase also pointed out last week (and we talk more about in our column this week), if you have older aircraft, it's much easier to manipulate your capacity because you can park them. You can cut utilization. It's not like you're parking new expensive metal. So as the cost of fuel goes up you can pull back on capacity fairly easily.

But if you have a lot of nice new "fuel efficient" aircraft -- you have to keep flying the hell out of them to cover your costs of ownership. And well, that then causes you to burn more fuel, and here we go.

I thought about this when I read a long story in MarketWatch Friday in which the traditional argument was made that the airlines that have higher maintenance costs, older aircraft, and higher fuel costs were the ones that had potentially the biggest problem -- in a high fuel environment. But as Gary reminded me last week, the other side of that argument, obviously, is how much is the airline paying for the airplane?

So before another list member decides to leave us, it's time to unveil the PlaneBusiness Titantic Watch. Note: List members are not necessarily listed in the order in which they could find themselves having to ask for third party support, i.e., bankruptcy.

As was the case in the past, by placing an airline on this list, we are saying that financially, the airline has issues that put the continued operation of the airline at risk.



Mesa Air Group

Okay, I assure you I have my bifurcated hat on here.

Given the news this week that Delta Air Lines is going to cancel its contract for approximately 19% of Mesa's current fleet, and the fact that those aircraft are going to be hard to re-place; given that the airline seems intractable on its money-losing Hawaiian escapade; and given the airline's financial results during 2007--for these reasons alone Mesa merits inclusion on the list.

But there are other issues.

The biggest of which is the fact the airline has an approximately $37 million convertible note payment coming due in June. The airline now has a market cap of about the same amount. In the last earnings call, CEO Jonathan Ornstein talked about how the airline would probably 'go to the markets' in an attempt to raise more cash.

With the stock below $2 a share and no major regional contracts out there to replace what Delta is pulling out -- you have to believe that 'going to the markets' at this point in time is going to be a) very expensive and/or b) not possible.

 

[WalterSobchak]

The free market will prevail on this one.

ALPA allowed the pos contract that MESAhas today - They signed off on it!
Pax will pay more for a ticket and DEMAND more service than before, hence the fact that MESA has no place in this industry anymore. SkyWest pilots seem alot happier than MESA people - ask yourself why ?????
It's not about union/non union - I used to think it was. It's about mngt and whether they are in it for the long run, or if they are only interested in running a sweatshop.

Finally, someone gets it.

 

[rickair7777]

You guys are really screwing this one up.

The pilots at Mesa are union members.

Most likely their slack will be picked up by non-union Skywest: A pilot group which has been the beneficiary for many years of ALPA induced profession raising improvements. A pilot group that refuses to contribute to the profession. In short, a bunch of professional freeloaders.

The Mesa pilots certainly have their own list of problems and have allowed themselves to be manipulated to management's benefit, but their actions pale in comparison to the pilots of Skywest.

Be careful who you are rooting for and against.

RIIIIIIGHT....

That's why there's so many ex-SKW pilots at mesa...actually there are none, unless they got fired by SKW for flying drunk.

I've worked at MAG and SKW (voted yes btw), but this is the most ridiculous statement I've heard on FI in a very long time (that's no small thing).

So you'd rather work at MAG than SKW, 8 days off, 35% less pay (-1.9%), total crap treatment, no rules, crap Mx, etc, etc. Yeah, right.

 

[buscap]

RIIIIIIGHT....

That's why there's so many ex-SKW pilots at mesa...actually there are none, unless they got fired by SKW for flying drunk.

I've worked at MAG and SKW (voted yes btw), but this is the most ridiculous statement I've heard on FI in a very long time (that's no small thing).

So you'd rather work at MAG than SKW, 8 days off, 35% less pay (-1.9%), total crap treatment, no rules, crap Mx, etc, etc. Yeah, right.

I never said I would rather work at Mesa. Skywest is a better airline and a better place to work by every measure.

RTFP (Read The Freaki'n Post)

It is better for the profession if a company with a unionized pilot group is successful as opposed to one without a union. It's that simple and that's my point.

 

[Cuban B.]

You guys are really screwing this one up.

The pilots at Mesa are union members.

Most likely their slack will be picked up by non-union Skywest: A pilot group which has been the beneficiary for many years of ALPA induced profession raising improvements. A pilot group that refuses to contribute to the profession. In short, a bunch of professional freeloaders.

The Mesa pilots certainly have their own list of problems and have allowed themselves to be manipulated to management's benefit, but their actions pale in comparison to the pilots of Skywest.

Be careful who you are rooting for and against.

Hmmm..."ALPA induced profession raising improvements?" You mean like that lovely contract we had at Beagle?