I Googled Mesa. They left American (American said they had "reliability concerns" about Mesa) and just started with United in March of this year. The seat map had changed from my original plane but perhaps wasn't accurate. If the phone rep had said "We just started flying with Mesa and I'm sure they will have their seat maps accessible by July 4th" I would have said OK. But there was too much . . . sort of making things up. Mesa is also having trouble hiring pilots (true of most airlines I guess) and had 2nd quarter losses of $35 million.
Anyway, thanks to the above replies I was able to confidently change my flight to the night before with no problem whatsoever. Thanks in particular to
jsloan for the "operating carrier" comment since that helped me sound legit rather than "I don't trust those little planes!!"
I doubt this will be the last of the drama for my flights, but maybe? I almost did this Northern Lights cruise 3 years ago but getting from Nashville to Bergen seemed daunting. And Delta/KLM has some decent connections now, too, if all else fails. Thanks again. I love this forum!!!
