America West FlightFund (Pre-2005 US Airways merger) - American West Express/Mesa Air FA's

As a HP plat, I obviously spend more than my share of time in the air. The almost all of my travel is one mainline planes.

This morning, I flew on one of the RJ's and was really turned off by the FA annoucement banter. All of the usual announcements were accompanied by the FA's personal commentary and included things that apparently the FA found funny or at least amusing.

Now, I started my day very early on a mainline jet and connected to the RJ for my last leg. When I got on the plane, it didn't take me long to remember how cramped these are (I hadn't been on one since the F seats were removed). It was hot while we were sitting in PHX and I admit, I was feeling a bit cranky.

However, I found the banter (a la Southwest) extremely unprofessional. (i.e. "for those of you that havent been in a car since 1960, to fasten your seatbelt....."). The announcements may be stupid but if those are the regulations, just do what you are suppossed to do.

Is this typical of Mesa Air or just one of those crews?

I obviously was not amused but maybe I am too stiff.

As a HP plat, I obviously spend more than my share of time in the air. The almost all of my travel is one mainline planes.

This morning, I flew on one of the RJ's and was really turned off by the FA annoucement banter. All of the usual announcements were accompanied by the FA's personal commentary and included things that apparently the FA found funny or at least amusing.

Now, I started my day very early on a mainline jet and connected to the RJ for my last leg. When I got on the plane, it didn't take me long to remember how cramped these are (I hadn't been on one since the F seats were removed). It was hot while we were sitting in PHX and I admit, I was feeling a bit cranky.

However, I found the banter (a la Southwest) extremely unprofessional. (i.e. "for those of you that havent been in a car since 1960, to fasten your seatbelt....."). The announcements may be stupid but if those are the regulations, just do what you are suppossed to do.

Is this typical of Mesa Air or just one of those crews?

I obviously was not amused but maybe I am too stiff.

You know, funny you should mention this. I feel the same way everytime I'm on a HPEX jungle jet. The last flight I was on last month from Dallas the f/a offered similiar, extraneous banter I found not amusing. She was mixing the safety demo with jokes (like you said, ala WN) and wasn't amused in the slightest. Granted, having a 1/2" of cushion for your butt doesn't help the situation either :(

enviroian:

Thanks for making me feel that I am not crazy.

It's not the biggest problem over at HP, but just the same, I will write to HP and give them my 2 cents on the matter.

Being a HP Triple Platinum this year, I refuse to fly Mesa. Nothing against the Mesa Employee. I have a major problem as an AWA Shareholder, The contract between Mesa and America West requires AWA to pay Mesa for any open Seats. This causes Mesa to earn revenue on all seats on all planes. (Is this Fair? From a Mainline (AWA) point NO! From a MESA Yes) the only problem is I’m on the other side of the fence on this issue. Since it is MY Company that is spending extra money to pay Mesa. I understand the Hub and Spoke and the Feeder and RJ Business Models. The only good think is that the Mesa Deal will change with merger. I don’t think East Shore Holdings (DBA Air Wisconsin) is going to allow Mesa to keep flying after they put up some $$.

I also find it amusing that when a...

RJ arrives early the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express operated by Mesa.


RJ arrives LATE the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express.


That’s my two cents

I also find it amusing that when a...

RJ arrives early the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express operated by Mesa.


RJ arrives LATE the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express.
I always wondered why I never hear "operated by Mesa" :D Are those things EVER on time?

Lance

I can't wait until we are known as USAirways--I won't have to hear AMERICAN West anymore. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I can't wait until we are known as USAirways--I won't have to hear AMERICAN West anymore. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Hey the website even had it for quite a while. I think they just got it fixed. It's one of those things like when I type Divdend Miles, about 85% of the time I type "Divident" instead of Dividend. Natural finger movement or something. :D

Lance

Hey the website even had it for quite a while. I think they just got it fixed. It's one of those things like when I type Divdend Miles, about 85% of the time I type "Divident" instead of Dividend. Natural finger movement or something. :D

Lance

I noticed that "typo" on the site the day it came out and so did every other employee that saw it. The reason was explained that when John Public searches "American West" because they know nothing about HP, it would come up. What a shocl...when you Google "American West", guess what is the first listing--America West Airlines.
I still thought it was pretty silly to have that on the site but it all made sense after that!

Hey the website even had it for quite a while. I think they just got it fixed. It's one of those things like when I type Divdend Miles, about 85% of the time I type "Divident" instead of Dividend. Natural finger movement or something. . .

That is so strange -- I do exactly the same thing -- every time. :confused:

I noticed that "typo" on the site the day it came out and so did every other employee that saw it. The reason was explained that when John Public searches "American West" because they know nothing about HP, it would come up. What a shocl...when you Google "American West", guess what is the first listing--America West Airlines.
I still thought it was pretty silly to have that on the site but it all made sense after that!
Well either the designers don't know what they are doing or they were fibbing because there are ways to put keywords in without having it blatantly displayed on the website. I do this all the time with sites to catch the typos.

It's no biggie and it will be going the way of the dodo soon....:(

Lance

As an HP Plat you should know the name of the airline.

...honestly, I'm on Mesa RJ about 4-6 times a month and it's occasionally nice to hear something other than the same old "your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device" line that I've been able to recite since I was 12. :cool:

At this point, they ought to just say "If you haven't been on a plane before, press your call button and a flight attendant will come and tell you all about it..." @:-)

My worst Mesa FA was a young woman who didn't have an adequate command of the English language. She was completely unintelligible and was a safety hazard. :mad:

[QUOTE=mallthus]...honestly, I'm on Mesa RJ about 4-6 times a month and it's occasionally nice to hear something other than the same old "your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device" line that I've been able to recite since I was 12. :cool:

At this point, they ought to just say "If you haven't been on a plane before, press your call button and a flight attendant will come and tell you all about it..." @:-)

I too have experienced the "exWN" FA on Mesa. However on the "Six Flags over Arizona" route, PHX-TUS the standard seat cushion line always gets a laugh.

[QUOTE=mallthus]...honestly, I'm on Mesa RJ about 4-6 times a month and it's occasionally nice to hear something other than the same old "your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device" line that I've been able to recite since I was 12. :cool:

At this point, they ought to just say "If you haven't been on a plane before, press your call button and a flight attendant will come and tell you all about it..." @:-)

I too have experienced the "exWN" FA on Mesa. However on the "Six Flags over Arizona" route, PHX-TUS the standard seat cushion line always gets a laugh.

Well, my experience with America West Express is horrible (like everyone else). You would think that Mesa could operate a plane (just one) ON TIME since they are getting paid for ALL of the seats. The last time I flew them, we waited for a gate in OAK for 1 hour (after a 90 minutes flight). The time before that, they were an hour late, changed gates THREE times (said the pilot drove into the wrong gate???), and then the monsoons started before we could take off (delaying us another hour).

The humorous F/A on the latter flight worked her a** off and defused a very tense situation by giving us something to smile about AND excellent service.

Waited for a gate in OAK? HP only has like two gates! How the heck did they screw the schedule up that badly?

Waited for a gate in OAK? HP only has like two gates! How the heck did they screw the schedule up that badly?

Its not Mesa I hate, I usually have ear plugs in so I don't hear the drone of the pre-flight announcements. However my shoulders and neck are aching just thinking about an RJ. My issue is the dang planes. The carryon restrictions are ridiculous, okay so I'm an airbus fan.

I agree the WN imitations would be annoying, but I have to agree with "mallthus" that the more pressing concern is the communication skills of the FA. If the passengers in exit rows need to be able to speak and understand english shouldn't the FA be held to at least as high of a standard. And by speak I mean a comprehendible (sp?) version of the language.

Thankfully, I guess, I haven't had the "pleasure" of flying YV yet... in fact I've only ever flown QX regional metal. Next week I've got legs on UAX-OO and USX-YV/Piedmont, so I guess I'll find out how well YV handles their "new US" RJ ops...

Being a HP Triple Platinum this year, I refuse to fly Mesa. Nothing against the Mesa Employee. I have a major problem as an AWA Shareholder, The contract between Mesa and America West requires AWA to pay Mesa for any open Seats. This causes Mesa to earn revenue on all seats on all planes. (Is this Fair? From a Mainline (AWA) point NO! From a MESA Yes) the only problem is I’m on the other side of the fence on this issue. Since it is MY Company that is spending extra money to pay Mesa. I understand the Hub and Spoke and the Feeder and RJ Business Models. The only good think is that the Mesa Deal will change with merger. I don’t think East Shore Holdings (DBA Air Wisconsin) is going to allow Mesa to keep flying after they put up some $$.

I also find it amusing that when a...

RJ arrives early the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express operated by Mesa.


RJ arrives LATE the FA says Thank you for flying America West Express.


That’s my two cents
Exactly! The gate agents used to do that too. They actually had the nerve to tell people the delay was HP's fault....that sucks. Lately I have been hearing more and more people asking for Mesa Airlines when they check in at the ticket counter. Travel agents and res agents must be doing a better job of telling people the flights are operated by Mesa. When I make boarding announcements I always say "Thank you for choosing America West...in just a few moments we will begin boarding Mesa Airlines flight...." Technically we are not supposed to but I hear United and Delta doing the same thing with their regional carriers.

I agree the dorky announcements on board are just that...dorky. Its nice they want to try to make people laugh but sometimes they sound like idiots..lol.

When I make boarding announcements I always say "Thank you for choosing America West...in just a few moments we will begin boarding Mesa Airlines flight...."

Mesa stinks to high heaven and I refuse to fly them. More and more people I work with have the same opinion and HP is losing face with those hicks.

Yes it's sad....I don't know what's going on anymore but it seems like our management has been more worried about the merger lately than getting on Mesa's butt about their performance. Hopefully things will change after the merger. Then we will have more regional carriers to work with...might get Mesa alittle more concious about their performance, knowing they will have competition.

Waited for a gate in OAK? HP only has like two gates! How the heck did they screw the schedule up that badly?

As usual, Mesa was 45 minutes late leaving PHX. They couldn't find a 2nd FA for our flight. Actually, the flight was showing on-time at 8:10am, but no gate agent bothered to show up until 8:00am (and didn't make an announcement until 8:10am -- seemed annoyed the pax were asking her when the flight was going to leave -- DUHHHHHH!).

When we got to OAK, the pilot said that both gates were occupied. Apparently, there was an HP jet with a mechanical on one of the gates. After 45 minutes, the ground crew finally decided to move the plane. No sh**, Sherlock! Who runs the OAK station anyway? I assume that these decisions were made by HP, not Mesa. They KNEW the plane was coming eventually!

I wrote CS a letter on this one. They sent me one of those tiered discount coupons and my Mother saved $100 on a Mexico trip! Not a bad ending.

Mesa certainly at least has its share of problems. For instance, not being able to find a replacement F/A in your hub is inexcusable.

However, one of the problems with complaining about any regional airlines' performance is that the mainline carrier often dictates many of the things that cause problems to passengers.

The mainline carrier usually sets the schedule, including determining the amount of turn time between flights. Tight turn times for any airline increase utilization, but they also mean that a single delay for any reason is likely to cascade throughout the day.

For any airline, there is also a trade-off between maximizing the number of flights and emphasizing operational performance. Most mainline carriers require their commuter airlines to operate with a much lower ratio of spare aircraft than they maintain. Generally, this would maximize their financial return from their Express operation since they aren't paying their partner for "unproductive" aircraft that are just sitting around. The downside is that the commuter's operational performance may suffer because there just aren't as many aircraft to plug into the schedule when something breaks or gets out of position.

The proverbial friend of a friend once told me Mesa wasn't entitled to any spare aircraft under their contract until they had a substantial number of jets. According to her, even now they only allowed to have a couple spares out of the 60-odd aircraft that they fly for HP. She also told me that UA once scheduled a single Mesa CRJ-700 to fly from SFO to AUS to IAD to PHL. None of these stations were within 750 miles of Mesa's maintenance bases or their spare aircraft, which was based in DEN. THAT is a recipe for operational disaster.

There are clearly regional airlines out there that have overcome these challenges. Skywest certainly pops to mind. I would love to know if they are simply better operationally, or if they do not have as many restrictions placed on them as some of the other regionals.