Apparently US Airways likes double digits. It seems that 9 Express carriers weren’t enough, so now US Airways has added a tenth to the stable: SkyWest. When Mesa came out of bankruptcy, US Airways agreed to keep 7 of the 50 seat CRJ-200s and 6 of the Dash-8 turboprops in the fleet for a short period of time. That time is up, and US Airways will replace those with 14 SkyWest CRJ-200s with the option to go up to CRJ-700s if it wants. What do you think of the move? Will Mesa’s remaining CRJ-900 operation end up flying under the SkyWest flag one of these days?
As a refresher, here are the other US Airways Express operators:
- Mesa – operates 38 of the CRJ-900s from Phoenix and Charlotte
- PSA – (wholly-owned) operates 35 CRJ-200s and 14 CRJ-700s on the east coast
- Air Wisconsin – operates 70 CRJ-200s on the east coast
- Republic Airlines – operates 20 ERJ-170s and 38 ERJ-175s on the east coast
- Chautauqua Airlines – operates 9 ERJ-145s on the east coast
- Trans States – operates 8 or fewer ERJ-145s from Pittsburgh
- Piedmont – (wholly-owned) operates 33 Dash-8-100 and 11 Dash-8-300 turboprops on the east coast
- Mesaba – operates 7 or fewer Saab 340 turboprops on the east coast
- Colgan Air – operates 7 or fewer Saab 340 turboprops from LaGuardia for now