Mesa Plans Hawaiian Inter-Island Operation

Mesa Airlines, the poorly run small jet operation, has announced that it will start an inter-island operation in Hawaii with its CRJ-200 regional jets. The idea is to codeshare with the upcoming America West flights that are going to be arriving in Hawaii starting in December. According to Mesa, they plan to form a new company which will commence operations in the first quarter of 2006. By March, America West will have four flights per day to the islands. As Mesa already codeshares with America West and U.S. Airways, this is a natural move for them. However, the bozos at Mesa could not have picked a worse place for a new operation.

First, regional jets have very high operating costs per take-off and landing. Aircraft use gobs of fuel on takeoff, and since these jets are already very inefficient, they just become that much more inefficient on short flights. Second, the competition on the routes is ridiculous. Hawaiian Airlines operates 717 aircraft on inter-island routes, Aloha operates 737s (both the smaller -200 and the larger -700). Island Air operates Dash-8 turboprops with 37 seats, and offers flights to some destinations that other airlines cannot access due to the length of the runways. Another start-up, FlyHawaii, plans to fly between the islands with ATR-72 aircraft. That's a great deal of competition to go up against.

To add to that, almost every other plane up there is more efficient at carrying passengers than the CRJ-200. With fuel prices at record highs, it's just silly to think that you can operate an airline with that much competition with aircraft sorely lacking in fuel efficiency. Because of that competition (in other words: low fares), yields are terrible, and Mesa's entry will only exacerbate that situation. Furthermore, the real money is made by carrying mail and other cargo between the islands, that's the strength of the 717s and the 737s, and it's what makes this operation so difficult.

Other questions are also raised, because America West's flights are going to be arriving at roughly the same time. How will the scheduling work? How many planes do you need stationed in Hawaii to create viable connections? Also, it sounds like Mesa's goal is to establish an independent airline in the islands. So will they be flying different routes, maybe non-stop routes that islanders normally must connect on? That's an advantage of a small jet, maybe they can charge a premium for that if they decide to jump. If only 40-50 people need to go from Liuhe to Kona per day, a daily by Mesa could work there.

It's a tough sell, but it maybe able to work. Then again, knowing the management at Mesa, they'll somehow screw it up.