Mesa Air Group, Inc. announced
today that its subsidiary, Mesa Airlines, Inc., has signed a Letter of
Intent to lease ten Beechcraft 1900D aircraft currently operated by
its subsidiary, Air Midwest, Inc., to Big Sky Transportation Co., a
regional turboprop air carrier based in Billings, Montana, and a
wholly-owned subsidiary of MAIR Holdings, Inc. Deliveries of the aircraft
will commence in February 2005 and are expected to be completed by
February 2006. The ten aircraft are part of a total fleet of 31 1900D aircraft operated
by Air Midwest.

“With the completion of this transaction, substantially all of our
remaining 1900D flying will be in conjunction with the government
subsidized Essential Air Service program. While not guaranteed, the
program is designed to provide the operator a 5% profit on a fully
allocated basis. This compares to a fully allocated pretax loss of $9.8
million in our 1900D operation last fiscal year,” said Jonathan Ornstein
Mesa’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We believe this
consolidation will improve our ability to provide the best service
possible throughout the remainder of our turboprop network.”
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