I have been a MESA FA for just over a year. This is a second career and I absolutely LOVE it! I am disheartened when I read all of the negative comments. Although fairly new, I have worked with many crews and the VAST MAJORITY have been very hard working and professional. Our maintenance issues have improved significantly. We know our reputation and will bend over backwards to provide a safe, professional and pleasant experience.
My question..... have you recently flown on a MESA flight? Do we really deserve the reputation and comments I continually read on A net.
( first post, very longtime member)

I will say the vast majority of the crews and front line employees in general are amazing people, the only reason the company has survived in my opinion. The problem I had was they always seemed to cut corners and were very cheap. I wouldn't call them an unsafe airline by any means but the appearance of their aircraft and equipment always made customers/passengers wonder if the aircraft were safe. I think the only reason they have a "cleaner" appearance at the moment is because they have fairly new fleet but unless something has changed on the priority of appearance/paint/interior items I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing their aircraft starting to look "shabby" in the near future.

MesaAirPHX wrote:

I have been a MESA FA for just over a year. This is a second career and I absolutely LOVE it! I am disheartened when I read all of the negative comments. Although fairly new, I have worked with many crews and the VAST MAJORITY have been very hard working and professional. Our maintenance issues have improved significantly. We know our reputation and will bend over backwards to provide a safe, professional and pleasant experience.
My question..... have you recently flown on a MESA flight? Do we really deserve the reputation and comments I continually read on A net.
( first post, very longtime member)

This is purely anecdotal, and I'm certainly not passing judgement on anyone who works at Mesa apart from management.

When I was in college at ASU years ago, our professional flight program was run by Mesa Pilot Development. Granted I was an ATC major, but I had a fairly intimate outsider's view given the number of friends who worked there (and got furloughed or otherwise screwed). It seemed like the majority of the longstanding issues with the company stem from JO and general mismanagement over the years. The bankruptcy and resulting pay cuts seemed to have led to a generally younger and inexperienced workforce with higher turnover, although things have likely stabilized in that respect in recent years. That could have resulted in the reputation of which you're referring.

While their emergence from bankruptcy surprised the hell out of pretty much everybody, I'm not sure they necessarily emerged a stronger company overall. Then again, as we've seen recently, most regionals are fragile these days, so it's hardly a unique position. From a passenger experience perspective, I have no reason to believe Mesa isn't on par with any other regional, so I think that people who say otherwise aren't really being objective. Passenger experience is honestly inconsistent with most US carriers, and regionals are no exception. Like I said, my critical comments of the company are mainly aimed at JO — I genuinely can't believe he's hung on for this long. I don't know how things are now, but he was not particularly well liked 10 years ago. He was always a little too big for his britches, as my grandfather used to say.

Look up JO and what he did to AQ. Yes, they deserve the bad reputation. They’ve earned it.

I’m sure Mesa is a fine carrier. I’ve had some less than pleasant interactions with their CEO however.

Look up the 12 latest DOT Air Travel Consumer Reports and check where Mesa ranks in on-time, cancellations, mishandled baggage, mishandled wheelchairs and scooters, and IDB. This gives a way more comprehensive picture than soliciting a few stories.

https://www.transportation.gov/individu ... er-reports

I personally won’t fly Mesa because of their record with pilot training. That, plus their rock-bottom pay, makes them a prime candidate for derision. While a lot of good people do work there and I’m glad you enjoy your job, in general I’d say yes, Mesa absolutely deserves its reputation.

MESA earned that distinction going all of the way back to the 80's. They have always been known as a "Bottom-feeder", flying crappy airplanes and paying nothing, while using different ops they owned to compete against each other cost-wise.

Does that description still apply today? I couldn't tell you.
They seem to be a stronger company today than in the past.

I briefly worked there. I don’t let my family fly on them anymore. Many of the flight crews are good. Many aren’t. Most of the FAs were alright. No issues there. Their pilot training department was mostly good. But then they had the task of training and passing some of the worst pilots in history, who have no business being airline pilots, like that atlas pilot who crashed. Some of the stories I heard over the last 5-6 years from my buddies who were check airmen and regular line captains there were downright scary. Go ask some senior captains (like 15 year guys) all the JO stories. It’s a bottom feeder (to put it nicely) outfit because of JO, but also because during times when pilots are scarce, they take many who washed out from other airlines. I won’t go into too much detail about the pilot side, and to be fair quality has been an issue at lots of regionals up until covid. Just more so at Mesa from my anecdotal discussions and experience.

Mesa has been a well operated carrier for as long as I can remember and I've been in Airline maintenance for going on 40 years now and I worked with guys who came from Mesa at United. Their Airplanes always seem to be in good repair but they always seemed to be in some sort of Crisis or transition which I think was caused by senior management.
This isn't the first time they've gone through this though. The first time it was caused BY Larry Risley who got the Bright idea to address the United ALPA group and tell them Mesa was going to fly 737's in United Colors and they'd better get used to the idea. Just making that stupid statement damn near led to a Strike as United was in a funk for nearly 3 years with the Pilots and Management at each other's throats. Now that they're finally going to fly 737's for DHL? That may be enough to calm them down because I doubt they know what they Bit off. But? We shall see.. I just hope they can ratchet up their operation to take care of 737's as I'm surprised they didn't take on 757's or 767's.

Let’s just say, all the pilots who didn’t make it through at my regional or another reputable regional ended up either at Go-Jet or Mesa.....

Thank you all for your replies.

MesaAirPHX wrote:

I have been a MESA FA for just over a year. This is a second career and I absolutely LOVE it! I am disheartened when I read all of the negative comments. Although fairly new, I have worked with many crews and the VAST MAJORITY have been very hard working and professional. Our maintenance issues have improved significantly. We know our reputation and will bend over backwards to provide a safe, professional and pleasant experience.
My question..... have you recently flown on a MESA flight? Do we really deserve the reputation and comments I continually read on A net.
( first post, very longtime member)

By your own words, "Our maintenance issues have improved significantly" and you've been at Mesa "for just over a year." In other words, you've seen positive changes in just a year - doesn't that answer the question for you? Mesa has a long, long history of sometimes questionable behavior, so they earned that poor reputation. I don't lay that at the feet of the line employees, Ornstein is to blame. I met him years ago and my first impression of him was that he wasn't connected to reality.

He hasn't changed his spots. He earned a very poor reputation when he ran Continental Express, too.

Mesa out of Phoenix a while ago was terrible from a reliability perspective. So much so that even my fo workers who knew nothing about airlines and aircraft knew not to book a flight on them. They seem to have gotten better when they added those hot spare white tails. Their reputation is still bad in Phoenix , couldn’t tell you elsewhere. The FAs have always been great though

I can only speak from a pilot perspective on this. Mesa and more specifically JO has done everything they can to cheapen the industry. Their pilots were known for having mud and dirt on the back of their uniforms because they only could afford to ride a bike to the airport. I had a few friends fly there and they did alright, moved on to bigger and better gigs. On the other hand, Mesa’s pilot recruiting department is like the Last Chance U of airlines. They hire some people that have no business flying passengers and it shows.

As someone who works at a UA line station, I will tell you that I would take Mesa over EV (Rip), C5, and ZW any day of the week!

Does Mesa still fly the original CRJ900s they were launch operator for? Many hated those aircraft but the CR9 still is my favourite aircraft.

First of all, best of luck in your new career. It is a great industry. I think your answer also lies in this fact. Is MESA different from "the past?" probably,most have had to adjust. If you go back 1 year, the reputation is far different than if you go back 20, 30 or 40. Depending how long you have been in the industry or how far back you are going, yes, they deserve the reputation. Their history will tell you. Is it different now? Well, those who chose to fly can say, for those that stay away because of the past, they have already voted with their feet.

It is good to hear you enjoy it. That will help build a new reputation for them. Stay safe.

They are the cockroach of the industry. I know a few pilots that couldn’t get hired anywhere else and ended up there.

CRJ900 wrote:

Does Mesa still fly the original CRJ900s they were launch operator for? Many hated those aircraft but the CR9 still is my favourite aircraft.

Yeah and those aircraft have major reliability issues honestly they have had a lot of subpar maintenance and a lot of cycles and are just plain worn out at this point but because they can seat 79 AA is going to keep them until the absolute last minute they can.

Almost every Mesa F/A I've seen is a child. We're talking like 16-18 year/old just barely out of High School.

MesaAirPHX wrote:

I have been a MESA FA for just over a year. This is a second career and I absolutely LOVE it! I am disheartened when I read all of the negative comments. Although fairly new, I have worked with many crews and the VAST MAJORITY have been very hard working and professional. Our maintenance issues have improved significantly. We know our reputation and will bend over backwards to provide a safe, professional and pleasant experience.
My question..... have you recently flown on a MESA flight? Do we really deserve the reputation and comments I continually read on A net.
( first post, very longtime member)

Mesa has the bad reputation of being the bottom of the barrel as far as pay and benefits go.

Mesa has the lowest paying FAs in the entire industry correct? $16 a block hour? And with regional flying that translates to something like 8 dollars a hour or some such. They are going to have trouble if these min wage laws that are sweeping the nation take hold in their bases.

How can a young person new hire survive on the monthly guarantee Mesa pays?

Flew them numerous times when they had a base in DEN. If I recall correctly, a lot of the negatives leveled at Mesa stems from their inability in past years to meet their established performance targets with their partner airlines. JO was probably his own biggest enemy with his ambitions to grow the airline. There have been some really good people FAs and pilots go through the Mesa mailbox and wind up with a major carrier. Former Mesa people are likely at all the major carriers now days.

Frontier 14

I currently work as an FA for a regional that operates in close proximity to YV. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

YV is seen as a "bottom of the barrel" airline, providing cheap contracted flying. Commuting on Mesa is a chore. Personally, the non-AA owned CRJ9s are very uncomfortable and unsightly inside. The crews are usually fine, but Ive met some rude FAs. The PAs they use, especially the "after landing" PA also are lengthy and incorporate strange lines such as "dont walk behind the wing" and what not.

A couple times in recent history, YV pilots have made errors resulting in incidents, notably the McAllen incident, which is notable for the pilots failing to report the incident initially. Brings into question the experience of crews, since YV is often an entry level airline for new pilots. There is an unsubstantiated rumor, almost a joke, among my pilots that YV even hires pilots who are underqualified in terms of experience and flight hours.

YV consistently runs late, and has even gotten AAG in trouble with a few LA area airports for their tardiness.

On another personal view, YV has recently been awarded cities, some popular, my regional had held for many years, and a lot of us didnt take too kindly to the removal of these cities from our schedules.

I might be overly cynical, but YV is an unremarkable contract airline.

I worked there in the mid-90's. Operationally we were garbage, but looking back, we had a blast.

First, thank you all for your thoughtful replies. I was worried this post might turn into a MESA bashing thread. As was noted above, we were the launch customer for the 900, and I believe we have the oldest crj 900 flying in our fleet.( I can already hear the comments). I want to respond to some of the statements made regarding safety. I have my PPL -ASEL, although not current, I have been around aircraft maintenance my entire life. My father was an Air Force mechanic and maintained his own C-150. I have always been an aviation nerd and very interested in civil aviation safety.
I can honestly say, not ONCE have I ever been a situation where I thought I or our aircraft was in a compromised situation in regards to safety. Yes, we have areas we need to improve on, no doubt.
As far as J.O. is concerned, I have heard every kind of opinion imaginable, I honestly don't know that much about him. In one of our "town halls" he said he would do everything possible to make furloughs a last resort and I, for one, feel very fortunate to still be flying. I think the turmoil in the industry has made us a little more humble and a lot more appreciative of working in an industry we love.
Thanks again!

UA748i wrote:

I currently work as an FA for a regional that operates in close proximity to YV. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

YV is seen as a "bottom of the barrel" airline, providing cheap contracted flying. Commuting on Mesa is a chore. Personally, the non-AA owned CRJ9s are very uncomfortable and unsightly inside. The crews are usually fine, but Ive met some rude FAs. The PAs they use, especially the "after landing" PA also are lengthy and incorporate strange lines such as "dont walk behind the wing" and what not.

A couple times in recent history, YV pilots have made errors resulting in incidents, notably the McAllen incident, which is notable for the pilots failing to report the incident initially. Brings into question the experience of crews, since YV is often an entry level airline for new pilots. There is an unsubstantiated rumor, almost a joke, among my pilots that YV even hires pilots who are underqualified in terms of experience and flight hours.

YV consistently runs late, and has even gotten AAG in trouble with a few LA area airports for their tardiness.

On another personal view, YV has recently been awarded cities, some popular, my regional had held for many years, and a lot of us didnt take too kindly to the removal of these cities from our schedules.

I might be overly cynical, but YV is an unremarkable contract airline.

McAllen incident...funny you mention that. She (pilot flying) went to delta a few months later.

Mesa keep 1 CRJ200 on there certificate for years. So they could lay there pilots 200 pay scale (instead of 700/900 rates) for vacation, sick time ect....

MesaAirPHX wrote:

First, thank you all for your thoughtful replies. I was worried this post might turn into a MESA bashing thread.

Umm... you asked the question. are you surprised? These responses were setup more than peewee tee-ball.

I’ve got a lot whole lot of buds that flew for a whole lot of regionals. No one I respect flew for Mesa.

Edit: PS I’m thrilled you’re enjoying the new job, but when the covid dust settles at least consider other carriers. There’s so many great spots to work in this business.

I fly on Mesa sometimes almost weekly. I'll start with the negatives...
On the AA side they fly some of the oldest CR9's in service and it shows on their interiors; as previous posts have mentioned they feel quite worn out, although they were refurbished several years ago with the new AA-standard seat covers/carpet/bulkheads which helped somewhat.
The route I most commonly fly on is almost solely served by YV, with one of their maintenance bases being on one end of it. Their RON's out of that station have historically had HORRIBLE delay/cancellation statistics due to maintenance. And their on-time performance when they first started their DFW flying was unbelievably bad for the first year or so.
On a positive note...
The maintenance delays/cancellations seem to be much better recently (over the last year or two) in my experience with them, with all of my flights on them over this period being right on-time. I've almost always had excellent crews (both FA's and pilots) on them, often better than on mainline. Their newest CR9's delivered in 2014-2015 are quite a pleasant ride, just wish there was more of them like on PSA (I believe they only have 6 or 7 of these "next-gens").
I'll finish by saying that I've actually looked forward to my more recent flights on them due to a combination of their often great FA's and much better on-time performance of late (at least in my experience). This was definitely NOT the case going back a few years ago and before when I would fly on YV (still had great crews but lousy on-time performance).

I wasn't being sarcastic. I think most of the replies where thoughtful and made valid points from the posters perspective - not just bashing MESA for the sake of bashing...Yes, I asked the question and I welcome the answers.

Last five flights on Mesa, 900s, all had an inop lav and inop pack. I’ve got a picture somewhere of nine MEL/CDL stickers on the panel. I’ve ripped pants on screw heads protruding from seats, seen missing lenses on PSUs, and gone back to the gate once when a brake stuck after engine start. Those problems aren’t limited to the initial batch freedom (not capitalized intentionally) flew. Some were on NGs.

The airline needs to be cleaned up. Big time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And then there was this: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/0 ... ory03.html

Mesa hasn't killed anyone in 40 years of operation which is more than most regionals can say. Mesa's pay has always been horrible. I knew a Mesa FA that lived in her car in the employee lot at ORD. My last flight on a Mesa, CR7 PVD-IAD, was actually pretty good.

Ionosphere wrote:

Mesa hasn't killed anyone in 40 years of operation which is more than most regionals can say. Mesa's pay has always been horrible. I knew a Mesa FA that lived in her car in the employee lot at ORD. My last flight on a Mesa, CR7 PVD-IAD, was actually pretty good.

That is really sad to hear and Mesa should really be shamed on social media for it. Flight crew should be paid better than a 16 year old working at a convenience store.

Ionosphere wrote:

Mesa hasn't killed anyone in 40 years of operation which is more than most regionals can say. Mesa's pay has always been horrible. I knew a Mesa FA that lived in her car in the employee lot at ORD. My last flight on a Mesa, CR7 PVD-IAD, was actually pretty good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481

Air Midwest was Mesa Air Group. It was the B1900 subsidiary. Much like the CRJ-900s were operated by Freedom Airlines (and why you see some of their CR9 tail numbers still ending in xxxFJ).

Ionosphere wrote:

Mesa hasn't killed anyone in 40 years of operation which is more than most regionals can say.

'Hasn't killed anybody,' is really a pretty low service standard. I mean, how could you build an ad campaign around that? Show AA 4184 auguring into a field outside Chicago, and say 'Not us!'? CO 3047... 'Not us, either!'

A good safety record and sound safety program are necessary but not, on their own, sufficient.

Moosefire wrote:

Ionosphere wrote:

Mesa hasn't killed anyone in 40 years of operation which is more than most regionals can say. Mesa's pay has always been horrible. I knew a Mesa FA that lived in her car in the employee lot at ORD. My last flight on a Mesa, CR7 PVD-IAD, was actually pretty good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481

Air Midwest was Mesa Air Group. It was the B1900 subsidiary. Much like the CRJ-900s were operated by Freedom Airlines (and why you see some of their CR9 tail numbers still ending in xxxFJ).

Yup, as if trashy Mesa "C scale" wages weren't bad enough, lets start another company with lower wages and make a "D scale". Mesa is a stain on the entire industry and has drug the industry down with it. The sooner Mesa goes away, the better, for everyone (employees, businesses and passengers). Mesa is like a cockroach in a nuclear war, they keep surviving, but hopefully COVID is the final blow.

Mesa was rated really bad in the early mid-2000's because of a few things:

1. Really low pay scale.
2. Standup overnights. Basically they would schedule you to fly a 1-2 hr sector that arrived at about Midnight, then sit in the plane for a 5-6 AM departure, and then if you were still legal, they might send you on another segment before sending you to a hotel or home or if you were commuting, after arriving at the 5-6 AM departure, you'd have to commute home or straggle your way to the crash pad, Crews hated them, but they were technically legal and in compliance with the CBA. I think they got rid of them in 2008-2010.
3. A mish-mash of old ratty planes. In the early 2000's, Mesa/Freedom Air/Air Midwest had: Ratty old B-1900s they flew out of Charlotte and Kansas City, Ratty old Dash-8-100's they flew out of ,Denver, average condition E-145's that were abused in the Freedom Air fleet, ratty old CRJ-200's they flew out of PHX, DEN, ORD, and IAD, newish, but horrendously uncomfortable CRJ-900's as they were in an 88Y configuration with these terrible teal seats and operated out of CLT and PHX so they were total sweatboxes on the ground. They also were some of the only CRJ-900's built to have the CRJ-200's low windows and small bins.

MIflyer12 wrote:

Look up the 12 latest DOT Air Travel Consumer Reports and check where Mesa ranks in on-time, cancellations, mishandled baggage, mishandled wheelchairs and scooters, and IDB. This gives a way more comprehensive picture than soliciting a few stories.

https://www.transportation.gov/individu ... er-reports

Mesa is a contract carrier. They have no control over mishandled bags, as they have no ground ops, mishandled wheelchairs/scooters, as again they have no ground ops, IDB shouldnt be put on them as they dont sell tickets or have gate/ticket counter agents, that's on the carrier they fly for. All they have are planes and crews. Even the on time and cancellation section can be looked at from either side as they will cancel a flight at the request of the Mainline carrier, maintenance is their responsibility though, so that falls on them. They are not great but they are also not horrible. Basically just your average regional.

JoseSalazar wrote:

McAllen incident...funny you mention that. She (pilot flying) went to delta a few months later.

Isn't Delta an airline where you have to know someone in order to get a pilot interview??

I will add that I know many HQ people that have a unique insight into JO and all of them have since moved on to much far better paying jobs. However Mesa got them into the door of the industry.

Speaking of Mesa (don't want to create a new thread), anyone know what the deal is with N942LR right now? Showing a 7 hour delay (AA5923, GSO-DFW). It's one of the CRJ900s in the Mesa livery, it landed right behind my Envoy flight last night.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N942LR

Mesa got a reputation for unreliability, NOT because of crews but because of management decisions to over-utilize their fleet, so the effect of cancellations would ripple, with poor recovery.

I never heard a bad word, on a.net or during my short industry experience about Mesa crews. YV management did what they did to be the cheapest provider to airlines and keep the operation going. But they did it in a way that jeopardized on-time performance.

Back in the late 90’ they had a line that did 11pm PHX-LAS -SLC. Land in SLC at 2m. Then the crew would do the 6am SLC-PHX flight. They would sleep on the aircraft. One FO brought a 4’ piece of wood to put in the isle to make a bed on the seats.. The stories go on and on. In 1998 got hired at Mesa in the breakfast lobby of a Holiday Inn.. no conference room for the interview. Just breakfast with regular people and a few questions...

flyingcat wrote:

JoseSalazar wrote:

McAllen incident...funny you mention that. She (pilot flying) went to delta a few months later.

Isn't Delta an airline where you have to know someone in order to get a pilot interview??

I will add that I know many HQ people that have a unique insight into JO and all of them have since moved on to much far better paying jobs. However Mesa got them into the door of the industry.

No. Internal recs can help, just like with any job, pilot or either wise. But they score their pilot apps on a manually accomplished score system...getting it scored from the thousands of apps on file can be done by going to a job fair or by an internal recommendation process. Some people get hired without either of those. Ultimately it’s up to the candidate’s resume and interview performance. Their interview is one of the more difficult pilot interviews—it requires a decent amount of studying. But selection is very merit (and the personality test/psych interview) based.

It was an eons ago but my personal experience with Mesa was not great. They were dumping their very used Be1900. some of the oldest ones flying. I worked for another low budget operation in the Midwest at the time. We picked up 4-5 of their old planes. They were absolute garbage. The wiring in the cockpit was worse than what a shade tree car mechanic would do. Illegal automotive splices and wires going everywhere. Loose rivets all over the wings and flight controls. Everything leaked. It took us weeks to fix those things.

Before that job I had worked on even older higher time Be99 that were in 100% better shape.I vowed I would never fly on one of their airplanes. That was 30 years ago. I still have not been on one.

Absolutely. Too many canceled flights, dirty planes, and its run by a real.....well, I'll let you figure that one out..

I once interviewed for a job at their HQ, it was very weird. The recruiter warned me that if I got the job, I would be subject to JO occasionally screaming and yelling at me, was I OK with that?

This thread is perfect for October and Halloween.

Them conducting interviews in booths adjacent to the holiday inn breakfast buffet made me laugh the most. I hope they at least let all candidates fill up a plate to eat between questions!