American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) removed two further CRJ900s from its Capacity Purchase Agreement (CPA) with Mesa Airlines (YV, Phoenix Sky Harbor) citing the poor operational performance of the regional carrier, Mesa Airlines revealed during the quarterly earnings call.
"When combining the impact of the damaged aircraft, the extended C-checks, the unprecedented weather, and widely reported GPS outage, we did not meet the performance criteria and American elected to remove two aircraft effective November 2, 2019," COO Brad Rich said.
The carrier already removed two aircraft from active operations on behalf of American Airlines in April 2019. These two units were then placed as back-up units, increasing the safety cushion to five aircraft.
"Unfortunately, during the initial 60-day performance period that began May 1, we had an aircraft unavailable due to ground damage in Dallas/Fort Worth by a ground handler, and two additional aircraft were unavailable due to extended C-check turn times caused by labour shortages at our heavy maintenance provider, Bombardier Aerospace. As a result, rather than benefiting from the additional two spares, our spare aircraft count was reduced from three to two throughout the majority of the measurement period," Rich said.
Despite having another aircraft damaged in a ground collision at Dallas/Fort Worth airport on July 31, Mesa Airlines is positive that by the end of August it will have five operational spare aircraft for its American contract. However, Rich said that the ongoing operational challenges mean that it was possible that additional aircraft will be removed the from American Eagle contract.
President and CFO Mike Lotz said that Mesa Airlines was still evaluating the future of the two CRJ900s due to be removed from American Airlines operations in November.
"Some of those alternatives are to use the aircraft to support the American operation, to redeploy the aircraft at other operators, to lease the aircraft or to sell the aircraft as we do have significant equity in the two aircraft that we removed," Lotz said.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Mesa Airlines currently operates all sixty-four of its CRJ900s on behalf of American Airlines. It owns all of the jets. The carrier also operates twenty CRJ700s and sixty E175s on behalf of United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare).
