Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: StarOfAfrica2 on December 21, 2006, 11:39:45 AM
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MESA announced it will become the first US airline to operate a joint venture with Shenzhen Airlines flying in mainland China, creating a new regional carrier. Service will be provided between Shenzhen, Bejing, Chongqing, Xiamen, Nanjing, Kunming, Dalian, Shenyang, Xian, Zhengzhou and Nanning. Service is to start within 12 months with 20 50-seat jets in operation before the 2008 Bejing Olympic games. The fleet is to expand to over 100 planes over 5 years and include 50-, 70-, and 90-seat aircraft. Types have not yet been determined.
For anyone that isnt familiar with them, Mesa has a history of taking small niche airlines that no one else could get a profit out of and making them profitable. They have been operating an interisland service here in Hawaii for the last year, and they have cut the cost of tickets in half. And still making a profit.
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Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
They have been operating an interisland service here in Hawaii for the last year, and they have cut the cost of tickets in half. And still making a profit.
They have been using some creative cost cutting measures.
Not providing crewmembers with hotel rooms on CDO/Highspeed overnights. Instead they are issued a board to place over the row of seats to convert a row of seats into a bed.
All this on under $18,000 a year for your first year. Under 24,000 your second year.
Combine it with lousy work rules, horrible schedules and hardly qualified pilots...sounds great! Sign me up.
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Originally posted by Golfer
They have been using some creative cost cutting measures.
Not providing crewmembers with hotel rooms on CDO/Highspeed overnights. Instead they are issued a board to place over the row of seats to convert a row of seats into a bed.
All this on under $18,000 a year for your first year. Under 24,000 your second year.
Combine it with lousy work rules, horrible schedules and hardly qualified pilots...sounds great! Sign me up.
:rofl
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Mesa :rofl
I have had many dealings with a company very much like this :rolleyes:
They have poor planning, poorer leadership and ridiculous ideas about how little sleep a person actually needs.......Oh the tales I could tell. :eek:
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I've got a cockpit team for them:
http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/bombers4.html
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I'd post a link to the exact same thread you just posted a few minutes ago...but I won't.
I won't also mention it's been posted about a dozen times before, either.
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This should give airplane makers a boost
Small aircraft makers maybe....I don't even think Boeing has a model that carries less than 110 passengers...except the Boeing Business jet, which caters to the very weathiest.
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Golfer, I'm not arging their business practices. I'm looking at them from the standpoint of a customer and a stockholder.
They succeed where others fail. Regularly. They make profits for their stockholders. They provide a service that their customers enjoy and can afford. In short, they do what we want all airlines to do. How they do it is irrellevant to those of us on the ground. I can see how from your point of view, you wouldnt like them. I understand it and sympathize. I'm going to keep giving them my business though. They get the job done.
Mesa
I have had many dealings with a company very much like this
They have poor planning, poorer leadership and ridiculous ideas about how little sleep a person actually needs.......Oh the tales I could tell.
From your POV, maybe. If they have such poor leadership, why are they so successful? They have great leadership as far as Wall Street is concerned.
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
This should give airplane makers a boost
Small aircraft makers maybe....I don't even think Boeing has a model that carries less than 110 passengers...except the Boeing Business jet, which caters to the very weathiest.
I wasnt aware of that. Wishful thinking on my part I guess.
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I've invested some cash into this company over the past couple of years, as I believe they will be the next up and coming company to start producing a competite 50-100 passenger commercial airplane:
http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c061017HondaJetNBAA/
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I know the ones go! are using here are strictly Canadair 50 seaters. Not the most comfortable plane in the world, but for under an hour in the air its liveable. I heard some time ago about Honda entering the plane business but then forgot to keep up with it. I'll have to look into that one some more myself. :)
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I have been watching Honda's jet development for a while. Pretty interesting. I am curious about the service interval on those engine mounting arms.
They seem to be taking thier time with it though. Could be a winner.
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Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
How they do it is irrellevant to those of us on the ground.
True; however, their shoddy, shortcutting maintenance procedures, abyssmal failure to honor FAA crew rest rules, pressuring of crews to accept planes with serious mechanical problems and to fly into weather that is marginal at best is pretty relevant to those back in the cabin while in flight.
Mesa is pretty much the poster child for everything that is bad in commuter aviation. But hey... they make money, right? That's all that matters!
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I'm not saying you arent right. I cant agree or disagree because I have no knowledge of what they are like to work for. All I know is, for years we've watched as prices went up and up and up for tickets to go anywhere, while quality of service has gone down and down and down. Airlines go bankrupt, flights get cancelled or run late, and the seemingly constant bickering between unions and owners pinches the customers worse than anyone. Add to it the increased security pressure since 9/11 and its a wonder more people dont threaten to blow up planes. Not for terrorist purposes, but just out of frustration. Maybe Mesa is as bad as you say, but they look good from the outside.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
I have been watching Honda's jet development for a while. Pretty interesting. I am curious about the service interval on those engine mounting arms.
They seem to be taking thier time with it though. Could be a winner.
Its funny you say that, I wondered much the same when I first saw that design.
They claim a significant noise reduction from the engines not being attached to the fuselage. But, how much difference can 4 feet make?
Still, they are partnering with Beechcraft (I think), so they are tapping into some excellent experience.
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Open the cover before you judge the book.
If getting from A to B is your goal Mesa does this. Getting from A to B in a safe airplane maintained by quality people, operated by quality people and getting there safely should[i/] be your primary concern.
As with anything else you get what you pay for. Think there's a reason they're turning a profit when nobody else can? It's not some godsend named Ornstein...it's a guy rolling the dice hoping that if something does go wrong not many people will die.
I've got a good buddy working there now who's a fine a pilot as you'll find. I've got a laundry list of things he's told me and none of them are good. Not just pilot quality...which honestly lacks (his own admission as well) but the pressure to fly not wanting to let the captain have an extra 1000# of fuel and shady maintenance practices are all parts of turning the profit you desire.
There's always a reason.
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Originally posted by LePaul
They claim a significant noise reduction from the engines not being attached to the fuselage. But, how much difference can 4 feet make?
They're partnering with Piper (as of this months Flying magazine)
You'd also be surprised how much those 4 feet can make. Flying an old king air 100 with the props real close to the fuselage and garrett engines screaming is one thing. Hop into a 350 with a couple extra feet between the prop tips and your ear and you'll find that it's a world of difference.
The biggest noisemaker in fast airplanes (comparing a jet to a turboprop) is airflow rather than engine placement.
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OK, listen. Mesa uses a lot of outside contractors for maintenance labor. Usually its the cheapest bidder that gets the work, other times the job was too much for those guys and they would call.......................me :D
hehe, OK OK, not ME specifically, but the company I worked for.
Its not that the maintenance is shady, every FAA rep in an area operated by Mesa or its subsidies (Air Midwest, which is not owned by Mesa anymore IIRC) keeps very close tabs on them (and other airlines of the type) from what I have seen. But you WILL find many items that are deferred until the next scheduled check. Do not make the mistake of thinking that your local well maintained major airline 747 does not also have a few deferred items glaring in the logbook. No deferred item is an airworthy item, or if it is it has been approved for continued flight by an engineer or manufacturer with some very close interval inspections to make sure the problem has not grown. Those are typically the ones they would call me for, once they had time for the plane to sit a day or three. I've done this for other commuter airlines as well. They all operate essentially the same, they biggest difference tends to be the people and thier attitudes. Happy mechs will gladly tell Maintenance Control to take a leap and then do thier very best to get the plane out on time, but will put safety first. Disgruntled and PO'ed folks will gripe and groan and let the doofus controller get under thier skin which can lead to less than stellar results. My favorite part of dealing with Mesa was tickin off the controllers.
Mesa will get results and likely turn a good profit but i seem to remember that thier stock value never used to rise much. It might be different now, when I was watching them they were 50/50 prop to jet aircraft ratio and were busy growing the jet side.
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I didn't mean to insult the folks who actually do the work. In-house and contractors alike. You're worker bees or folks with no inside interest so you were all for the safety of the airplane you're signing off. :)
I meant the people from oh-high who push the people down low to push the guys driving to go with what they might feel are too many orange stickers, the cooked APU in the middle of a phoenix summer or worse.
Chautauqua, Mesaba, Pinnacle, SkyWest, ASA and Piedmont...same deal all around. Mesa just seems to have perfected ****ing with their people to the point its no longer a recreational sport.
I was the mostest poorest brokest CFI (well...not really...but I wasn't exactly having problems counting my money) on the street and still didn't give them the satisfaction of letting them have their $50 for the privilege to interview there.
I've heard the CEO said it best...
"If I'm still filling training classes, I'm paying them too much."
Sounds like a great place to find happy workers. At least we know that happy cows come from california.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
...I am curious about the service interval on those engine mounting arms.
Boeing and Airbus seem to have solved the engine / wing mounting problem. I don't see why a top mounting should be any more difficult.
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I did not mean to imply it would be a problem Holden.
While I am no aircraft frame engineer, I do believe under wing mounted engines have an anchor point in the wing spar. Could be wrong there. But aren't the engines also mounted forward of the mounting points? I think this causes a more direct stress on the arm, reducing the sheer stress. Could be wrong there as well.
The Honda engine appears to be mounted far aft of the spar and placing more sheer stress on the mounting arm. Just a different kind of stress. I am sure it is safe. I was just curious about how the stress might effect the longevity of the and wing and engine mounting arm.
I am not qualified to challenge the design. I was just curious.
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The Canadair regional jet has engine beam problems which are slowly being resolved by a series of service bulletins. No mounting set up is free from some pretty severe stresses and all are subject to some pretty detailed inspections.
The Honda design would be no different.
No offence taken Golfer, was just trying to offer some perspective. :)
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hehe....Golfer you named 6 airlines, I done work for at least 4 of them. :)
The things a pilot goes through to get a job, and geez, I mean, not even a GOOD job, quite often a BAD job. Makes ya wonder about thier intelligence ;)