hagen
Jetlink Jerk
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2001
- Posts
- 154
September 8, 2003
Dear Fellow Employees:
As you are well aware, the airline industry continues to suffer economically and is forecast to lose $6 billion this year. Fortunately, thanks to all of your hard work, America West is dramatically outperforming the rest of the airline industry and was the only major hub and spoke carrier to report a second quarter profit. We expect to report a third quarter profit as well.
Our relatively strong performance and entrance into new markets, such as our new transcontinental service, allows us to once again look to growing our airline and I wanted to give you an update on our plans. As you may have noticed, we are already ramping up hiring for flight crews in anticipation of 2004 growth. This growth will be accomplished through increased fleet utilization and additional aircraft. It is difficult to estimate the exact rate of 2004 growth at this point, as we are still exploring the most efficient means of fleet expansion with aircraft manufacturers and lessors.
Despite this anticipated mainline growth, we currently have more regional jets (RJs) than we would ideally like in today’s economic environment. However, we have had contractual obligations with Mesa Airlines to continue growing the RJ fleet from a deal we signed in 2000. Fortunately (because there is demand for Mesa aircraft from United and US Air), Mesa has worked with us to restructure the contract and reduce some of our RJ capacity and defer additional deliveries by 10 to 12 months.
We are amending our agreement with Mesa for two key reasons. First, our financial performance is enhanced by reducing RJ capacity while the economy is still weak. Second, we want to more closely align the RJ growth with the growth of the mainline fleet. Since we will be growing the mainline next year, we prefer to defer the RJ growth until we are growing the mainline.
Specifically, the new agreement will immediately eliminate five CRJ-200s and five CRJ-700s that are currently part of the America West Express agreement. In fact, you may have noticed that in anticipation of signing this agreement, we have already cancelled 12 daily RJ trips from Phoenix to Los Angeles, San Diego, Albuquerque and El Paso. Additionally, we will defer 13 aircraft deliveries that were scheduled for October 2003 through April 2004 until the latter part of 2004. We will also convert 13 CRJ-700 deliveries into CRJ-900s. When completed, our total RJ fleet will be seven aircraft smaller than it would have been under the former agreement. Our CRJ-200s will be reduced from 23 to 18, CRJ-700s will be reduced from 15 to zero and our CRJ-900s will increase from 25 to 38. We will have 29 percent less RJ capacity next year vs. what it otherwise would have been.
In summary, our success as a team has us looking forward to growing our airline again. We also have been able to better align our RJ growth with our mainline needs. I’ll keep you apprised of our mainline growth plans as the fleet plan becomes more firm. In the meantime, please keep up the great work. We are building a winning airline by taking care of our customers.
Regards,
Doug
(taken from AWA site)
AWWW.............
I know Freedom or Mesa HELL it says Mesa on the back of the Id's....So to whoever
Dear Fellow Employees:
As you are well aware, the airline industry continues to suffer economically and is forecast to lose $6 billion this year. Fortunately, thanks to all of your hard work, America West is dramatically outperforming the rest of the airline industry and was the only major hub and spoke carrier to report a second quarter profit. We expect to report a third quarter profit as well.
Our relatively strong performance and entrance into new markets, such as our new transcontinental service, allows us to once again look to growing our airline and I wanted to give you an update on our plans. As you may have noticed, we are already ramping up hiring for flight crews in anticipation of 2004 growth. This growth will be accomplished through increased fleet utilization and additional aircraft. It is difficult to estimate the exact rate of 2004 growth at this point, as we are still exploring the most efficient means of fleet expansion with aircraft manufacturers and lessors.
Despite this anticipated mainline growth, we currently have more regional jets (RJs) than we would ideally like in today’s economic environment. However, we have had contractual obligations with Mesa Airlines to continue growing the RJ fleet from a deal we signed in 2000. Fortunately (because there is demand for Mesa aircraft from United and US Air), Mesa has worked with us to restructure the contract and reduce some of our RJ capacity and defer additional deliveries by 10 to 12 months.
We are amending our agreement with Mesa for two key reasons. First, our financial performance is enhanced by reducing RJ capacity while the economy is still weak. Second, we want to more closely align the RJ growth with the growth of the mainline fleet. Since we will be growing the mainline next year, we prefer to defer the RJ growth until we are growing the mainline.
Specifically, the new agreement will immediately eliminate five CRJ-200s and five CRJ-700s that are currently part of the America West Express agreement. In fact, you may have noticed that in anticipation of signing this agreement, we have already cancelled 12 daily RJ trips from Phoenix to Los Angeles, San Diego, Albuquerque and El Paso. Additionally, we will defer 13 aircraft deliveries that were scheduled for October 2003 through April 2004 until the latter part of 2004. We will also convert 13 CRJ-700 deliveries into CRJ-900s. When completed, our total RJ fleet will be seven aircraft smaller than it would have been under the former agreement. Our CRJ-200s will be reduced from 23 to 18, CRJ-700s will be reduced from 15 to zero and our CRJ-900s will increase from 25 to 38. We will have 29 percent less RJ capacity next year vs. what it otherwise would have been.
In summary, our success as a team has us looking forward to growing our airline again. We also have been able to better align our RJ growth with our mainline needs. I’ll keep you apprised of our mainline growth plans as the fleet plan becomes more firm. In the meantime, please keep up the great work. We are building a winning airline by taking care of our customers.
Regards,
Doug
(taken from AWA site)
AWWW.............
I know Freedom or Mesa HELL it says Mesa on the back of the Id's....So to whoever
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