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United Airlines has taken a 10% stake in Mesa Air Group, the parent of Mesa Airlines, valued at $10.5m. The Chicago-based carrier said in a 23 January filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it acquired 4,042,061 shares of Mesa. In addition, a United representative will join the Phoenix-based airline’s board. In December, Mesa severed its 30-year partnership with America Airlines in favour of a new, five-year capacity purchase agreement with United Airlines. The deal covers up to 38 Bombardier CRJ900s. Mesa has been flying for both carriers, with 37 Bombardier CRJ900s in service with American and 60 Embraer 175s in service with United, according to Cirium fleets data. With the new transaction, Mesa intends to continue using its same crew and maintenance bases in Phoenix, Dallas and El Paso in Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky. It also has United’s support in opening a crew base in Houston and a pilot base in Denver, with potential to add further sites. The agreement stipulates that Mesa will operate its current schedule with American through 28 February 2023, then reduce flights by half until it stops flying for American on 3 April. Mesa plans to begin transitioning aircraft to United in March. While accounts differ on why it broke with American, Mesa CE Jonathan Ornstein told employees in an internal memo in December that the carrier’s operation with American was losing about $5m monthly due to higher pilot pay rates and penalties for not meeting contracted block-hour requirements – meaning it was not flying enough. United has confirmed plans to park up to 38 E175s in favour of operating Mesa’s CRJ900s – a shift that will avoid United violating its contract with pilots.<br/>

The two dominant national airlines are increasingly focusing less on offering nationwide service and more on their regional strengths as they try to improve their financial performance — and also fend off soaring competition. Those pressures are why experts say WestJet is focusing heavily on Alberta, while Air Canada is prioritizing markets in the east, such as Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Those strategies are resulting in many service cuts in different parts of the country. WestJet has slashed service in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec, including about an 80% cut in flights between Toronto and Montreal compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.Conversely, Air Canada no longer flies out of several smaller airports in Western Canada, in addition to cutting service to larger cities on the prairies. Out of Calgary, the airline does not offer direct flights to Nanaimo, Cranbrook, Kamloops, Castlegar and Victoria in British Columbia, Regina and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, or Lethbridge and Medicine Hat in Alberta. Air Canada flew those routes in 2019. "It really is carriers trying to solidify their fiefdom," said John Gradek, faculty lecturer in the aviation management program at McGill University. "They're trying to basically create barriers to entry for other carriers, which is normal in a competitive environment."<br/>

Ethiopian investigators’ report into the Boeing Co. 737 Max crash outside Addis Ababa in 2019 falsely claimed the jetliner had an electrical failure, the US government said, in a highly unusual public rebuttal of the nation’s findings about the fatal accident. The US National Transportation Safety Board accused the Ethiopian Accident Investigation Bureau of making claims “unsupported by evidence” in conclusions belatedly published late last year. “The final report does not provide any details to support the EAIB’s statements about the existence of an electrical problem,” the NTSB wrote on Tuesday. US investigators said they agreed generally with Ethiopia’s findings that a flawed design in the 737 Max pushed the nose down automatically and was at least part of the cause of the March 10, 2019 crash that killed 157 people. It was the second fatal accident involving the model in a matter of months and led to its worldwide grounding, billions of dollars in losses to Boeing and multiple investigations. But the Ethiopians ignored numerous other factors, the NTSB said. In particular, the Ethiopian Airlines Group crew had been told how to counteract a failure of the flawed software known as Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, after a crash off the coast of Indonesia about four months earlier. But they failed to follow the procedure, the NTSB said. Amdeye Fenta, chief of the Ethiopian AIB, said the group is preparing a response. The dissenting opinion comes several weeks after the crash report was released because Ethiopian officials didn’t share it with the NTSB before announcing their findings. That is required under the international treaty governing crash investigations, the US agency said. The US previously issued a scathing release on Dec. 27 saying the Ethiopian report contained numerous false statements, ignored critical parts of the cause and repeatedly failed to explore safety issues such as pilot training that might prevent such events in the future. <br/>

Tata Group's Air India said on Tuesday the recent suspension of a pilot's licence by the aviation regulator was "excessive" after a passenger behaved in an unruly manner onboard one of its flights. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation last week fined the airline 3m rupees ($36,774) over its handling of the incident on a Nov. 25 flight in which a male passenger, while apparently inebriated, allegedly urinated on a female co-passenger. The regulator also suspended the licence of the pilot-in-command on the New York-New Delhi flight for three months. Air India said the matter should have been classified and reported as unruly behaviour by a passenger, but the flight crew and ground staff did not report it as such. "Air India wishes to acknowledge the good faith efforts made by crew to handle the situation effectively in real time, when not all facts were available," it said in a statement, adding that it deemed "the licence suspension of the commander excessive and will be assisting him with an appeal".<br/>

Heavy snowfall in large areas of Japan on Wednesday (Jan 25) forced hundreds of flight cancellations and snarled traffic for miles, local media reported. Domestic airlines including ANA and Japan Airlines cancelled more than 300 flights, while bullet train services were suspended or delayed in northern Japan, media reported. National roads could be closed for snow to be removed, the transport ministry said. Drivers have been urged to avoid making journeys that are not essential and to keep monitoring weather and traffic conditions. In areas where snow and ice have formed, drivers were advised to use winter tires and snow chains where necessary. On a highway in central Japan, cars and trucks were unable to move in the snow over a distance of about 10km, public broadcaster NHK said. The Japan Meteorological Agency said some parts of the country could see the mercury drop to the lowest levels seen in a decade. The frosty climes are expected to continue through Thursday, the weather agency also said.<br/>