Mesa Air Group has filed to go public with it Initial Public Offering (IPO):

Here are excerpts of the Prospectus:

PROSPECTUS SUMMARY

This summary highlights information contained elsewhere in this prospectus. This summary sets forth the material terms of the offering, but does not contain all of the information that you should consider before investing in our common stock. You should read the entire prospectus carefully before making an investment decision, especially the risks of investing in our common stock described under “Risk Factors.” Unless the context otherwise requires, the terms “we,” “us,” “our,” the “Company” and “Mesa” refer to Mesa Air Group, Inc. and its predecessors, direct and indirect subsidiaries and affiliates. Our airline operations are conducted through our subsidiary, Mesa Airlines, Inc. (“Mesa Airlines”). Certain terms related to the airline industry are described under “Glossary of Airline Terms” at the end of this prospectus.

Our Company

Mesa Airlines is a regional air carrier providing scheduled passenger service to 110 cities in 38 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas. All of our flights are operated as either American Eagle or United Express flights pursuant to the terms of capacity purchase agreements we entered into with American Airlines, Inc. (“American”) and United Airlines, Inc. (“United”) (each, our “major airline partner”). We have a significant presence in several of our major airline partners’ key domestic hubs and focus cities, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and Washington-Dulles. We have been the fastest growing regional airline in the United States over our last five fiscal years, based on fleet growth, with a cumulative increase in aircraft of 137%.

As of March 31, 2018, we operated a fleet of 145 aircraft with approximately 610 daily departures. We operate 64 CRJ-900 aircraft under our capacity purchase agreement with American (the “American Capacity Purchase Agreement”) and 20 CRJ-700 and 60 E-175 aircraft under our capacity purchase agreement with United (the “United Capacity Purchase Agreement”). Over the last five calendar years, our share of the total regional airline fleet of American and United has increased from 7% to 11% and from 4% to 15%, respectively. Driven by this fleet growth, our total operating revenues have grown by 55% from $415.2 million in fiscal 2013 to $643.6 million in fiscal 2017, respectively. We believe we have expanded our share with our major airline partners because of our competitive cost structure, access to pilots under our labor agreements and track record of reliable performance. All of our operating revenue in our 2017 fiscal year and the six months ended March 31, 2018 was derived from operations associated with our American and United Capacity Purchase Agreements.

Our long-term capacity purchase agreements provide us guaranteed monthly revenue for each aircraft under contract, a fixed fee for each block hour and flight flown, and reimbursement of certain direct operating expenses, in exchange for providing regional flying on behalf of our major airline partners. Our capacity purchase agreements shelter us from many of the elements that cause volatility in airline financial performance, including fuel prices, variations in ticket prices, and fluctuations in number of passengers. In providing regional flying under our capacity purchase agreements, we use the logos, service marks, flight crew uniforms and aircraft paint schemes of our major airline partners. Our major airline partners control route selection, pricing, seat inventories, marketing and scheduling, and provide us with ground support services, airport landing slots and gate access, allowing us to focus all of our efforts on delivering safe, reliable and cost-competitive regional flying.

Regional aircraft are optimal for short and medium-haul scheduled flights that connect outlying communities with larger cities and act as “feeders” for domestic and international hubs. In addition, regional aircraft are well suited to serve larger city pairs during off-peak times when load factors on larger jets are low. The lower trip costs and operating efficiencies of regional aircraft, along with the competitive nature of the capacity purchase agreement bidding process, provide significant value to major airlines. According to the Regional Airline Association, we were the fifth largest regional airline company in the United States in 2016, as measured by passenger enplanements, and our flights accounted for approximately 8.4% of all passengers carried on U.S. regional airlines.

Regional airlines play a daily, essential role in the U.S. air travel system. According to the Regional Airline Association, 42% of all scheduled passenger flights in the United States in 2016 were operated by regional airlines. Of all the U.S. airports with passenger airline service, 64% are served exclusively by regional airlines. Some of the most popular U.S. airports have more than half of all their flights on regional airlines, including New York-LaGuardia, Philadelphia, Washington-Dulles, Charlotte, Houston-Bush and Chicago-O’Hare.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe that our primary strengths are:

Low-Cost Operator. We believe that we are among the lowest cost operators of regional jet service in the United States. There are several key elements that contribute to our cost efficiencies:

 

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Efficient Fleet Composition. We exclusively operate large regional aircraft with 70+ passenger seats on a single Federal Aviation Administration (the “FAA”) certificate. Operating large regional aircraft allows us to enjoy unit cost advantages over smaller regional aircraft. Larger regional aircraft require less fuel and crew resources per passenger carried, and may also have maintenance cost efficiencies.

 

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Cost Effective, Long-Term Collective Bargaining Agreements. Our pilots and flight attendants ratified new four-year collective bargaining agreements effective as of July 13, 2017 and October 1, 2017, respectively, which are among the longest in the regional airline industry and include labor rate structures through 2023 for our pilots and 2022 for our flight attendants. We believe that our collective bargaining agreements and favorable labor relationships are critical for pilot retention and will provide more predictable labor costs into 2023. We derive cost advantages from efficient work rules and the relatively low average seniority of our pilots.

 

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Low Corporate Overhead. Our general and administrative expenses per block hour have decreased by more than 35% over the five-year period ended September 30, 2017. We have significantly reduced our overhead costs by operating with a modest administrative and corporate team, offering cost-effective benefit programs and implementing automated solutions to improve efficiency.

 

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Competitive Procurement of Certain Operating Functions. We have long-term maintenance agreements with expirations extending from December 2020 to December 2027 with AAR Aircraft Services, Inc. (“AAR”), GE Engine Services, LLC (“GE”), StandardAero Limited (“StandardAero”), Aviall Services, Inc. (“Aviall”) and Bombardier Aerospace (“Bombardier”), respectively, to provide parts procurement, inventory and engine, airframe and component overhaul services. We expect that our long-term agreements with these and other strategic vendors will provide predictable high-quality and cost-effective solutions for most maintenance categories over the next several years. In prior periods, we also invested in long-term engine overhauls on certain aircraft, which we believe will reduce related maintenance obligations in future periods.

 

Advantages in Pilot Recruitment and Retention. We believe that we are well positioned to attract and retain qualified pilot candidates. Following the ratification of our collective bargaining agreements in July 2017, the average number of new pilot applications per month has increased by 45.3% compared to the six months prior to such ratification. In addition, our average pilot attrition has decreased by 16.2% over the same period.

The following chart presents our cumulative increase in new pilots who have completed training, net of attrition, from July 2017 through June 2018:

 

We believe that the increased number of new pilot applications per month will continue with the introduction of our Career Path Program (“CPP”) with United. In addition to offering competitive compensation, bonuses and benefits, we believe the following elements contribute to our recruiting advantage:

 

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Career Path Program. We recently announced our CPP with United, which is designed to provide our qualified current and future pilots a path to employment as a pilot at United. We believe that our CPP will help us continue to attract qualified pilots, manage natural attrition and further strengthen our decades-long relationship with United.

 

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Modern, Large-Gauged Regional Jets. We exclusively operate large regional aircraft with advanced flight deck avionics. We believe that pilot candidates prefer advanced flight deck avionics because they are similar to those found in the larger commercial aircraft types flown by major airlines.

 

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Opportunities for Advancement. We believe that our career progression is among the most attractive in the regional airline industry. During fiscal 2017, our pilots had the opportunity to be promoted from first officer to captain in as little as 12 months.

 

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Stable Labor Relations. Throughout our long operating history, we believe that we have had constructive relationships with our employees and their labor representatives. We have never been the subject of a labor strike or labor action that impacted our operations.

 

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Enthusiastic and Supportive Culture. Our “pilots helping pilots” philosophy helps us attract, retain and inspire our next generation of pilots. Our team-oriented culture, as demonstrated by the mentorship of our senior pilots, is both encouraged and expected. We strive to create an environment for our personnel where open communication is customary and where we celebrate our successes together.

Stable, Long-Term Revenue-Guarantee Capacity Purchase Agreements. We have long-term capacity purchase agreements with American and United that extend beyond 2020 for 94 of our 144 aircraft in scheduled service (with 34 aircraft expiring between June and December 2019 and 16 aircraft expiring between January and August 2020, if not extended prior to contract expiration). Both of our capacity purchase agreements are “capacity purchase,” rather than revenue sharing arrangements. This contractual structure provides us with a predictable revenue stream and allows us to increase our profit margin to the extent that we are able to lower our operating costs below the costs anticipated by the agreements. In addition, we are not exposed to price fluctuations for fuel, certain insurance expenses, ground operations or landing fees as those costs are either reimbursed under our capacity purchase agreements or paid directly to suppliers by our major airline partners.

Fleet Exclusively Comprised of Large, Efficient Regional Jets. We exclusively operate large regional aircraft with 70+ passenger seats. These aircraft are the highest in demand across the regional airline industry and provide us with best-in-class operating efficiencies, providing our major airline partners greater flexibility in route structuring and increased passenger revenues. As of March 31, 2018, we had 145 aircraft (owned and leased) consisting of the following:

 

		Embraer Regional Jet-175 (76  seats)				Canadair Regional Jet-700 (70 seats)				Canadair Regional Jet-900 (76-79  seats)				Canadair Regional Jet-200 (50  seats)(1)				Total
American Eagle			—				—				64				—				64
United Express			60				20				—				—				80
Subtotal			60				20				64				—				144
Unassigned			—				—				—				1				1
Total			60				20				64				1				145

 

(1)	CRJ-200 is an operational spare not assigned for service under our capacity purchase agreements.

Longstanding Relationships with American and United. We began flying for United in 1991 and American, through its predecessor entities, in 1992. Since 2013, we have added 26 aircraft to our American Capacity Purchase Agreement and 60 aircraft to our United Capacity Purchase Agreement.

Strong Recent Record of Operational Performance. In January 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”) recognized us as the number one regional airline for on-time performance. In addition, we believe that we were the number one regional airline for on-time performance in 2016 and 2017 based on a comparison of our internal data to publicly available DOT data for reporting airlines. Under our capacity purchase agreements, we may receive financial incentives or incur penalties based upon our operational performance, including controllable on-time departures and controllable completion percentages.

Experienced, Long-Tenured Management Team. Our senior management team has extensive operating experience in the regional airline industry. Our Chief Executive Officer and President/Chief Financial Officer have served us in senior officer positions since 1998, and our management team has helped us navigate through and emerge successfully from bankruptcy in early 2011.

Top Copyright Photo (all others by Mesa): United Express-Mesa Airlines Embraer ERJ 170-200LR (ERJ 175) N88327 (msn 17000479) RDU (Ton Jochems). Image: 942825.

United Express-Mesa aircraft slide show:

Route Map: