Mesa Air points to maintenance woes and spare parts shortage for operational issues

Regional carrier Mesa Air Group struggled to meet the summer surge in travel demand in the US, thanks to supply-chain shortages and maintenance delays, affecting the flights it operated for American Airlines. The maintenance bottleneck was the primary cause of Mesa’s operational woes during the summer, leaving it with fewer spare aircraft in its fleet and ill prepared to handle disruptions caused by summer weather, CEO Jonathan Ornstein said during the company’s most recent quarterly call on August 9. Unlike other airlines that are facing staffing problems, Mesa has enough flight attendants on its roster and more than 250 pilots in its training pipeline. “I mean our flight attendant numbers have been really good, [and] our pilot situation, especially on the American side is healthy, so the weather impact to us, yes, it causes all those related issues on crews timing out and all of that issue,” COO Bradford Rich said. “Our primary issue has been that when we have the weather-related operational interruption, the inability to reset the system with adequate spare ratio has really been the core of our problem.” Mesa deferred maintenance during the early days of the pandemic to save cash. But that bill has now come due, and aircraft — particularly the fleet of CRJ900s that it operates for American, which are getting cabin refurbishments — are undergoing heavy-maintenance C-checks that take twice as long as they did before the pandemic. The regional carrier said in anticipation of this, it lined up additional maintenance providers. But the crux of the problem is those providers have been unable to source enough spare parts.<br/>