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"Mesaba could reap the benefits of Northwest’s move to buy a new fleet of regional jets, some of which could be assigned to Mesaba." Mesaba strives to develop, make profit with Northwest Airline to decide on giving further business to carrier By Joel J. Smith / The Detroit News David Guralnick / The Detroit News Mesaba flight attendant Mary Lampman prepares for takeoff. Mesaba has 110 daily departures at Metro Airport, all as a Northwest commuter operation. Northwest's partner Mesaba Aviation Inc. has been exclusively flying for Northwest Airlines for the past 20 years as Northwest Airlink: Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minn. Employees: 3,300 Passengers 2003: 5.6 million Departures 2003: 219,512 Turboprop planes: 64 Regional jets: 35 Founded: 1944. Became Northwest's code share partner in 1984. Source: Mesaba Aviation Inc. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery As Mesaba Aviation Inc. celebrates its 20th anniversary as a partner of Northwest Airlines, the commuter carrier is positioning itself for future growth with Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s largest passenger airline. Flying as Northwest Airlink the past 16 years, Mesaba could reap the benefits of Northwest’s move to buy a new fleet of regional jets, some of which could be assigned to Mesaba. “Our goal is to be a logical choice for growth with Northwest Airlines,” said John Spanjers, president of Mesaba, which has been operation for 60 years. While Northwest will make the final decision on whether to give more business to Mesaba, Spanjers said the company’s strategy is to be a top notch commuter airline that could handle any new flights Northwest assigns it. Based in Minneapolis, Mesaba has 110 daily departures at Detroit Metro Airport to 50 destinations in the Midwest, South and East, all as a Northwest commuter operation. It handled about 2 million passengers in and out of Detroit in 2003 and a total of 5.7 million passengers systemwide. The commuter airline has 64 Saab 340 turbo-prop planes that can seat 30 to 34 passengers and 35 Avro RJ85 regional jets that seat 69 passengers. Northwest owns 28 percent of Mesaba’s parent company, MAIR Holding Inc. The Holding company also owns Big Sky Airlines, a regional airline in the West. Mesaba has a unique arrangement where Northwest leases all its available seats on its 99 aircrafts. Northwest then markets the seats as its own, sets the price and determines where the Mesaba planes fly. The agreement goes through 2007. It’s worked out well for Mesaba. The airline made a profit of about $10 million in fiscal 2003-2004, which ended March 31. MAIR Holding reported a profit of $4.7 million for the year. The smaller and less expensive aircraft that Mesaba operates allows it to fly profitably into smaller communities that otherwise wouldn’t be served by a commercial airline. In Michigan, Mesaba serves Alpena, Kalamazoo, Flint, Grand Rapids, Midland-Bay City-Saginaw, Muskegon, Marquette, Pellston, Sault Ste. Marie, and Traverse City, allowing passengers connections at Northwest’s major hub airports in Detroit and Minneapolis. For example, Mesaba has daily service between Detroit and Pellston Regional Airport near Petoskey in northern Michigan. Except for the smaller size, it’s hard to tell that the planes aren’t regular Northwest aircrafts. “They are the only airline we have,” said Wilma Kuebler, an administrative assistant at the Pellston airport for the past 32 years. “It’s crucial to our community to have passenger service. We depend on it.” Northwest officials say they’re happy with their arrangement with Mesaba. “Mesaba is a key partner airline for Northwest Airlines,” said Tom Bach, Northwest’s vice president of market planning and Airlink. “Mesaba’s fleet of regional aircraft ensure that many small communities throughout the Midwest, East Coast and South enjoy reliable Northwest Airlink service and convenient links to Northwest’s three domestic hubs, providing connections to cities around the world.” Mesaba has about 3,200 employees with 1,000 based in the Detroit area. Many of the employees in Metro Detroit are pilots and flight attendants. But the airline has a Detroit hanger which handles maintenance work on both the Saab aircraft and the regional jets. Spanjers said his company has no current plans to increase its fleet of planes. Like Northwest and the other major airlines which have lost billions of dollars because of the downturn in the economy, the September 11 terrorist attacks and rising fuel cost, Mesaba is also trying to trim costs. It cut its operating cost by 6.5 percent during the last fiscal year. “Mesaba has faced many of the same cost pressures as the majors and our challenge is to find new ways of doing our business to reduce the impact of this,” said Spanjers. You can reach Joel Smith at [phone] or [e-mail]. 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