Airline Finance News - North America

AirGuide Business, July 7, 2008

Jazz Air, Air Canada

Jazz Air plans to chop 5 percent of its staff in response to cuts announced last month by its main customer, Air Canada, to cope with surging fuel prices, Jazz said on Thursday. Jazz Air, the regional feeder carrier for Air Canada, said its moves -- which will mean 270 job losses and a 5 percent cut in capacity -- are necessary to match resources with its reduced expectations for revenues. The operator of smaller regional jets and turboprop aircraft has a symbiotic relationship with Air Canada, operating under a capacity purchase agreement with the country's largest airline. Staff cuts will affect all areas of the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based organization, including pilots, flight attendants, customer service agents, maintenance and administrative staff as well as managers, Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said.deeper cuts could be in the offing if Air Canada is forced to squeeze its service and work force more, she said. 7/4/2008

Jazz Air, Air Canada

Jazz Air said yesterday that owing to planned fourth-quarter capacity reductions by Air Canada, with which it has a contract to operate regional flights, it will reduce its flying by 5% in the year's final three months and cut 270 employees. Air Canada said last month that it will reduce total system capacity by 7% year-over-year in this year's fourth quarter and the 2009 first quarter and slash its workforce by 2,000. Jazz President and CEO Joseph Randell said those cuts necessitated that the regional follow suit. "These are difficult times for our industry and the decision to reduce our workforce was not reached lightly," he said. "We are in a period of great uncertainty and cannot predict where the price of fuel is going." In order to offset fuel costs, Jazz has frozen all hiring and eliminated "noncritical" staff overtime. 7/4/2008

JetBlue Airways

JetBlue Airways flew 2.17 billion RPMs in May, down 2.3% year-over-year. Capacity grew 1.2% to 2.74 billion ASMs and load factor fell 2.8 points to 79.2%. 6/30/2008

MAIR Holdings, Big Sky Airlines

MAIR Holdings, which shut down its Big Sky Airlines subsidiary in March, said shareholders last week approved the dissolution and liquidation of the parent company. Yesterday it filed a notice to delist its stock from NASDAQ, with the last day of trading scheduled for July 7. 7/1/2008

Mesa Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines

Mesa Airlines fended off a legal challenge from Hawaiian Airlines and shuttered its Air Midwest operations, but it still managed to turn a profit of $9.4 million for the second quarter. Mesa currently operates 181 aircraft and flew 1.43 billion RPMs during the second quarter. 7/1/2008

Midwest Air Group

Midwest Air Group CEO Timothy Hoeksema told employees in a memorandum sent Wednesday that he will take a 40% pay cut effective July 15 as part of a series of wage reductions across the company, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. He said senior VPs will take a 25% cut, maintenance workers will be subject to 10% cuts and professional staff 5%. Midwest's restructuring also includes the grounding of its MD-80 fleet. 7/4/2008