WineCountryUA

American Airlines is dropping regional carrier Mesa
The UA angle
Scope clause issue? as presently configured these are 76-seaters

goodeats21

Interesting. I have flown on the AA CR9s. Nice ride. Would love to see them replace the outgoing CR2s, but yeah, unless something has changed with scope clause, not sure how they are going to do this.

MBS MillionMiler

This is amazing news, as they’re basically trading Air Wisconsin’s CR2s for Mesa’s CR9s! Selfishly hoping for an ORD base, which would make sense given the number of ZW’s airframes leaving ORD.

Haven't flown the Mesa version, but have flown various DL carriers’ versions over time in F and Y, and it was always a nice experience.

Lux Flyer

Not that simple. AIr Wisconsin's CR2 falls under the 50 seat portion of scope clause, whereas the CR9s are going to fall into the 76 seater limitations. Not looking at UAX's fleet arrangements, not sure they have enough room to add the CR9's under scope clause. Of course not sure why'd they'd be in discussion if they don't have a way to work this in, so there is that positive.

Unitedloyalflyer

do these plans have ovens?

Would allow for hot meals at least

EWR764

I worry the SkyWest 175s might be going off the United contract to be replaced by the CR9s.

IMO that would be a net negative for passenger experience.

LarryJ

The number of greater-than-50-seat aircraft in the UX is already at the maximum limit. These CRJ-900s could not be added unless other existing 70 or 76 seat aircraft are removed or they are flown by UAL pilots (which seems very unlikely).

The current 76-seat fleet is made up of E-175s. The current 70-seat fleet is made of of both CRJ-700s and E-170s. The Mesa airplanes could replace the CRJ-700s in a 70-seat configuration freeing those CRJ-700 for conversion to CRJ-550s but I think Mesa has more CRJ-900s than UX has remaining CRJ-700s.

It doesn't make sense to replace E-170/175 aircraft with the CRJ-900.

LBBflyer

I have been stuck on the Mesa CRJ9s too many times on SDF to DFW. These birds are not in good shape on the interior or mechanically. After getting several unscheduled overnights at DFW, I would not be excited about these moving to United. However, I guess they could still be an improvement over Air Wisky.

JAaronT

Aren’t loads of E175s and CRJ550s parked due to lack of pilots? Could Mesa just be offering up the people? Or can the CR9s replace some parked E175s (no idea how the contract is structured and what counts as currently flying or if they have to some to do some formal exit process for those E175s for them not to count against the contract)?

Micp3208

Someone told me that there were rumors of the E170s going to American Eagle. If that were the case, the CRJ900 would probably be outfitted with 70 seats a replacement. Also, I think Mesa has grounded some E175s, which could be operated by another carrier (CommuteAir has added the type). If that were the case, it would all make sense!

I feel like a spruced up CRJ-900 would be nicer than the E170, especially if it operated with 70 seats. I imagine we would have 10 or 12 F seats which is better than 6!

Time will tell.

goodeats21

The article in the original post references some info that Mesa was being financially penalized by AA for failure to meet some obligations established Pre-Covid. If they are moving to a new agreement with United, I would hope they would now have the financial resources to address the condition of frames / reliability.

As some of the previous posters have mentioned, I think there is more shuffling that will be occurring in all this. Scope clause has to be maintained, so it isn't just a simple add of all these 70+ seat frames. Other stuff has to happen.

Any thing that happens to reduce the CR2s seems to be a good thing.

JAaronT

They should just go for it and make a CRJ555 with 21F/29Y

lincolnjkc

Under the current scope restrictions UA can't have a net add of any 76 seat aircraft... it doesn't matter who is operating them (e.g. CommutAir operating Mesa-owned E175s doesn't solve a problem -- it would just mean that Mesa could operate fewer E175s for UA directly. I could see a CRJ-500-style move however I believe the scope also has MTOW limits which may require actually recertifying the frame as a new type rather than just removing seats (e.g. the CRJ-550 even though they started live as a CRJ-700 are legally CRJ-550s and despite the same engines, wings, etc., are legally limited to a lower weight to avoid running afoul of the scope clause.

Long term I really think UA needs to consider bringing a NSNB inhouse with UA pilots to ameliorate scope and also better their own FO/captain flow, as well as more consistency in operation, but there are some significant cost premiums involved in that so I don't expect it to happen any time soon unless the unions would agree to something like the "B" scales of the 1980s for new crews on property operating the NSNB

LBBflyer

All of the -900s could use some investment if they are going to keep them in the air. 2018-2019 were truly terrible times for Mesa's AA ops as they were running with basically no slack in the fleet. Currently they have several -900s in storage as they don't have the pilots to fly them. Hopefully they are using the downtime for repairs, but they may not have the cash. I flew one -900 back in 2019 that had 4 Y seats and 2 F seats inop, as well as my F seat window shade that was stuck down.

They do at least have 12F seats and power. I don't think any of them have wifi, or at least that works reliably.

WineCountryUA

The AA CRJ900 used GoGo, like the rest of UA's UX