US does not have many region specific airlines, but what it does, are well known and quite popular. Basically 2 names pop into our mind, the hawaiian airlines, and the mesa airlines.
People often wonder where the Mountain West airlines disappeared to. Well it never did. It only adopted the name of mesa air. The airlines under the mesa air group fly for us airways express, united express and go! covering almost all of the us states, but as its earlier name implies, the flight had begun to serve the Midwestern us states basically. It is a fairly young group, beginning in the 1980s only, however with its mergers each year, it also gained fame as mesa’s a deal a year growth plan.
Mesa air became mesa when the mountain west was left with america west and united express only. It turned over its hub based in Phoenix to America west and the rest of the mountain west was renamed mesa airlines.
Mesa air group has basically begun with the main aim of expanding and in the game, employing more people. The expansion with each new venture involved increased work incentives for the employees.
The decision of the mesa air to keep operating in the west but from the hub given to America West was indeed a perspicacious one since it resulted in expansion of mesa airlines group as well as increased business. This was closely followed flexible spending accounts for the employees of the mesa group.
The main business plan of the mesa air was to keep merging and expanding. Over the 1990s, we saw Desert Sun airlines as well as aspen airways and skyways mergers. However, in each case, the major points of the agreements differed. With each merger and expansion, there was simultaneous perk addition in the existing employees packages. First beginning with the medical insurance and other health coverage benefits, mesa air soon began to offer long term disability insurance as well.
Mesa always had the west in mind. This is the reason why it went for a merger with the Desert Sun and replaced the existing fleet of F70s with CRJ-200. This was followed by the merging of freedom airlines into mesa airlines as well. This time, mesa took its CRJ-900s and used them in their other subsidiary, the america west express. Also, mesa airlines has been using its fleet to provide services to US airways. The deal now consists of 52 jets. Since Embraer 145 was what was being added to mesa’s fleet, mesa began using CRJ-200 exclusively for the flights of america west.The superior airlines columbus hub also basically merged into the mesa air group, which mesa basically used to expand united express.
CalPac was another major venture of mesa, formed by affiliation with united express. However, later mesa air engulfed this too.
Eventually, the employees were having life insurance as well as travel benefits. Another unique incentive introduced by the mesa air group after its collaboration with the america west, as the introduction of the 401k plan for which any employee of 1 year service constituting of 20 working hours in week was eligible.
In order to add an edge regarding the competitiveness with other flights, mesa air also offered vision and dental insurance exclusively. It has also been rated amongst the top5 business groups of the world with maximum employee satisfaction grading. Mesa has been successful in expanding at such a sped owing to the loyalty and faithfulness of its employees, and the mesa air group knows this fact, and appreciates it.
The only twist in the story is that where the other airlines have started realizing it, mesa airlines knew it 2 decades back. This is why its employee benefit scheme began along with its first expansion venture. This has finally resulted into the large mesa airlines group today.
