Mesa Air Group, Inc. (Phoenix) has announced it will cease its Hawai’i operations under the go! (Honolulu) brand effective April 1, 2014. According to Mesa, “Since June 2006, go! has served its nearly five million passengers with safe, reliable and low fare service.” The group continued:

The decision to cease operations in Hawaii follows significant growth in the Company’s flight operations on the mainland and was a strategic decision to focus the organization on maximizing its growth in the capacity purchase “codeshare” operations which comprise over 98 percent of the Company’s business

“While this was an extremely difficult decision to reach, we believe it is in the best interest of Mesa’s long term strategic objectives, particularly given the Company’s ongoing expansion of aircraft in service with United Airlines and US Airways. Mesa will be placing into service 30 Embraer EMB 175 aircraft with United beginning in June 2014, and is adding 4 Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft with US Airways in 2014, having added 9 CRJ900s in 2013,” said Jonathan Ornstein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “With the significant expansion opportunities in flying large regional jets in contracted service, we are re-deploying the go! aircraft to support our existing mainland operations. An additional factor that we accounted for was the long term increase in the cost of fuel, which has more than doubled since go! began service and has caused sustained profitability to be elusive” continued Ornstein.

Under the terms of an agreement with Hawaiian Airlines, go! will be able to re-book passengers ticketed through go! for travel scheduled between April 1, 2014 and June 30, 2014 in specified fare classes on Hawaiian’s Interisland network. go! will refund tickets for passengers who cannot be accommodated on Hawaiian Airlines, or for passengers holding tickets for travel after June 30, 2014. All ticket holders will be contacted by go! reservations representatives regarding the re-accommodations. Customers and travel agents needing additional information may call 1-888-435-9462 or visit the website at .

“go! will continue to provide its passengers with safe and reliable transportation through its last day of service, and will work with our passengers and Hawaiian Airlines to minimize the impact that this announcement will have on our passengers,” noted Chris Pappaioanou, President of go!.

“On behalf of Mesa Air Group, I would like to thank all of our many loyal passengers and the continued hard work and dedication of our employees – all of whom will be given an opportunity to continue their employment with Mesa Airlines. While we say goodbye to our many passengers in Hawaii, we look forward to serving you on the mainland through our significant codeshare operations,” continued Ornstein.

Mesa currently operates 71 aircraft with approximately 407 daily system departures to 85 cities, 36 states, the District of Columbia, Canada and Mexico. Mesa operates as US Airways Express and United Express under contractual agreements with US Airways and United Airlines, respectively. The Company was founded by Larry and Janie Risley in New Mexico in 1982.

Meanwhile, Mokulele Airlines has announced it is honoring the flights purchased on go! Airlines for travel on Mokulele where available. For go! flights that were purchased on Mokulele’s website for travel to Kaua’i and Hilo, passengers should contact Mokulele for refunds. Mokulele Airlines has had a code share agreement with go! since November 2011 when TransPac Aviation purchased the turbo prop division from Mesa Air Group.

Copyright Photo: Ivan K. Nishimura/Blue Wave Group. The go! CRJ fleet is pictured at Honolulu.

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