Mesa Air Group, Inc. (fka MESAQ)

[Stock-n-Seeds]

Mesa Swaps Hawaiian Partners
By Gregory Polek

April 1, 2009
Air Transport and Cargo


Hawaii’s Island Air will fly de Havilland Dash 8s between Kahului, Maui, Lihue, Kauai and Hilo as Go!Express under the terms of a tentative code-share deal it signed with Mesa Air Group in late February. Mesa turned to Island Air after its current code-share partner on the islands, Mokulele Airlines, signed a deal with Republic Airways that saw three Embraer E170s registered to Republic subsidiary Shuttle America migrate to Hawaii and fly scheduled service under the Mokulele brand.

However, before a planned fourth E170 made its way to the islands, Republic threatened to confiscate Mokulele’s entire operation if it failed to pay overdue installments on an $8 million loan. Mokulele made at least two of the payments and, as of press time, continued to operate with financing help from a mainline U.S. carrier.

Mesa’s contract with Mokulele expires on April 28, at which point it plans to expand its relationship with Island Air.

http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/mesa-swaps-hawaiian-partners/