Northwest Wastes No Time On Cost-Cutting...

Northwest Airlines announced late today that it will terminate the leases on its 35 Avro Regional Jets, currently operated by one of its regional subsidiaries, Mesaba Airlines. These are older aircraft that are expensive to operate, partly because of the lack of capacity on the plane, and also because there are few other airlines that operate the plane - for a good reason. The plane, notable for four engines on such a small airframe, is quite spacious for a regional jet, holds 69 passengers, yet has operating costs that are simply too high (probably because of its excess of engines). Mesaba operates a fleet of 35 of these aircraft, not too many, and they need to be gotten rid of. Mesaba owns 10 of the planes outright, while they lease the other 25. Nine of the planes will be removed from service as of October 31, while the other 26 will be gone by December 31. It's Mesaba who gets hurt by this move, as they have no replacements for these aircraft.

While it sounds like a done deal, some people close to the situation say that Northwest may just be maneuvering to get a better lease rate from Mesaba. Mesaba may be caught in quite a bind here, but since these planes are very uneconomical, New Year's Day will mean one less aircraft type for NWA.