Mesa Ceo Pursues Atlantic Coast With Typical Feroc

[Todd B]

By Dan Reed, USA TODAY
PHOENIX — When Jonathan Ornstein was blackballed by a University of Pennsylvania fraternity in the mid-'70s — because he's Jewish, he says — he found a way to go where he'd been told he did not belong.

See article

 

[deltawatch]

Question from The Street.Com to Ornstein a couple of months ago: With regional airlines growing so fast, it seems like we're at a tipping point within the commercial airline industry. How unique is the idea of a mega-regional, something smaller than hub and spoke, but much larger than your current size?

Answer from Jonathan Ornstein Mesa: You have regional jets that will continue to support hub operations and that will be very powerful. And the likelihood of becoming a super carrier? I mean, yeah, you could easily see us at $1 billion in revenue. If we were to implement all of the aircraft we have under option right now, we could be at $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion. I'd say that's a pretty big regional carrier.

Look at what Atlantic Coast is doing and, as I said in my conference call, I can't say I'm not a bit envious. I think they're taking a high-risk strategy, but at some point, I want to become large enough to be able to say I want my regional jets to feed my own hub somewhere. But you need those other narrow body, low-cost aircraft to make the rest of the hub work and run larger jets, the 737s, or the A320s.

 

[Farley]

A Mesa spokesperson also downplayed the ACA complaint, calling it "completely expected" and dubbing it "an attempt to keep
ATA shareholders from choosing the future direction of the company."

Hopefully these numbsnutts will figure out who they are trying to acquire soon. ATA? Of course it was probably the reporter who got it wrong, but it's still ironic.