Mesa Airlines

Mesa Airlines is a regional airline based in Phoenix, Arizona. The airline says it carries over 13 million passengers each year for United Airlines. It flies under the United Express brand. The partner sells the tickets. Mesa supplies the aircraft, the crews and the maintenance. The site also notes that Mesa has merged with Republic Airways.

The fleet is made up of 60 Embraer 175 aircraft. The flights link passengers from smaller airports to United hubs. The site names three bases. Washington Dulles is the second base for the E175 and serves routes from Montreal to The Bahamas. SDF is the third base, for the CRJ-900. Houston is the largest E175 base, with flights from Havana to Montana to Cabo.

Mesa began as a small family business. Larry Risley and his wife Janie saw a chance for regular air service between Farmington and Albuquerque in New Mexico. They mortgaged their home and car to buy one five-seat single-engine aircraft. In 1982, they started flying and called the airline Mesa Air Shuttle. The name Mesa comes from the flat hill under the Farmington airport. Pilots still use Air Shuttle as the call sign with air traffic control.

The site lists later steps. The airline added its first twin-engine aircraft, a nine-passenger Piper Chieftain. It was renamed Mesa Airlines, went public and grew its fleet to 11 aircraft. It signed a codeshare with Midwest Express and then bought Aspen Airways, which led to a codeshare with United as United Express. It bought Air Midwest and was the launch customer for the Beechcraft 1900D. Partnerships with America West and later American followed. It was named Regional Airline of the Year by Air Transport World in 1992.

Later leaders moved the headquarters from Farmington to Phoenix. The airline also bought CCAir with 13 CRJ-200 aircraft and finalized the purchase of 36 Embraer 145 aircraft.

Maintenance matters to the airline. It says its team of mechanics, inspectors and technical staff won the FAA Diamond Award. It says it also joins United in backing electric aircraft firms Heart Aerospace and Archer Aviation.

The site has a careers section for pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and office staff. It also describes a program that helps pilots reach the flight hours needed for an ATP certificate, which is the top pilot license.