As I’ve stated before, Go! may not be long for aviation. Many industry analysts have questioned their ongoing financial viability. For a plethora of reasons, both those stated below and not, I suggest flying Hawaiian, Mokulele, or Island Air.
1. Go! parent sells only other off-shore venture.
Go!’s parent, Mesa Airlines, is in the process of selling its Chinese joint venture, at a loss. Mesa indicated in its SEC filing that it will receive $3.6M for the sale, which is a significant loss on its 2006 investment of $5.8M.
This divestiture bears mentioning inasmuch as it and Go! were Mesa’s only two ventures outside of its traditional North American operations. Both have been fraught with difficulties.
2. Big loss reported today.
Go! Airlines parent Mesa has just reported a $36.7M net loss in its most recent quarter on a $100M drop in revenue. Since I last wrote about their financial woes back in November, things appear to have gotten worse.
- Much of the past quarter’s loss is is reported to be income tax expense related.
- At the same time, Mesa recently disclosed that US Airways is reducing the number of Mesa planes it uses while Delta Airlines is reducing its use of Mesa planes, and remains in litigation on termination of their agreement.
Go! Airlines history in Hawaii.
Go! has been flying inter-island here in Hawaii since June 2006, using five CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft.
It has been in a virtually continual fare war since that time, first with Hawaii and Aloha, and now with Hawaiian and Mokulele. As you may recall, Mokulele is half-owned by Mesa’s mainland competitor, Indiana-based Republic Airways.
In addition, Go! has been plagued by lawsuits over its formation with Hawaiian and Aloha, and with former flying partner Mokulele. It has also suffered from bad public perception here in Hawaii.
The competition.
Hawaiian is the major and long-standing inter-island competitor, and currently flies 15 Boeing 717 aircraft.
Mokulele, which joined the competition last fall, operates 4 Embraer 170 aircraft.
Island Air continues to operate a small fleet of 37-seat Bombardier Dash-8 prop jets. They are also the major carrier serving Lanai and Molokai.
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