Jonathan G. Ornstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mesa Air Group, Inc.
Jonathan Ornstein began his aviation career in 1987 with Air LA, a small commuter airline based in Los Angeles, California, where his responsibilities ranged from finance and planning to baggage handling and aircraft cleaning. Jonathan's first contact with Mesa occurred in the summer of 1988 during the negotiation of Air LA's sublease of a Mesa aircraft and in 1989, Jonathan accepted a job offer from Mesa with the prestigious title of "Assistant to the President". At Mesa Jonathan was eventually responsible for all scheduling, pricing, fleet planning and acquisitions.
Over the next six years, working with Mesa's CEO Larry Risley, Jonathan directed Mesa's acquisition of Aspen Airways (United Express), Air Midwest (US Air Express), WestAir (United Express) and Crown Airways. During this time, Mesa's annual revenues grew from $11 million to over $500 million, pretax income rose from $240,000 to $45 million and the number of employees increased from 165 to 3,000. In recognition of its success, the Company was named 1992 Regional Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine.
At the time of Mesa's purchase, WestAir was both the largest, as well as the most unprofitable, independent regional airline in the US. Following Mesa's purchase, Jonathan was appointed President of WestAir. After a significant restructuring, WestAir broke its string of ten consecutive quarterly losses and posted a pretax profit exceeding $15 million, up from a pretax loss of $12 million twelve months earlier.
Returning to Mesa headquarters in 1993, Jonathan Ornstein worked closely with Texas Pacific Group and Continental in the bankruptcy reorganization of America West. In recognition of Mesa's help in the America West restructuring, as well as Mesa's operational capabilities, the Company was chosen to provide regional operations for America West. In addition, Mesa invested $20 million in America West which it later sold for a $47 million profit.
As a result of the work Jonathan performed in the America West restructuring, Continental's Chairman and General Partner of the Texas Pacific Group David Bonderman offered Jonathan the opportunity to become President and CEO of Continental Express. Like WestAir, Continental Express had been significantly unprofitable for a number of years and with the lessons learned from his experience at Mesa, Jonathan and his new management team quickly implemented a major restructuring. Jonathan also concurrently served as Senior Vice President Airport Operations for Continental Airlines overseeing the successful restructuring of Continental's operations. In recognition of his accomplishments at Continental, Jonathan was selected as Regional Airline Executive of the Year for 1995, an award presented by Commuter/Regional Airline News - the industry's publication of record - and Rolls-Royce.
After Continental chose not to spin off the now-successful Continental Express, Ornstein accepted an offer from Richard Branson to develop a low-cost, low-fare jet carrier in Europe. In 1996, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Express, based in Brussels, Belgium. During his tenure at Virgin Express, Jonathan took the company from a fledgling startup to a publicly traded company operating a fleet of over 25 737s throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. By 1998 the airline's passenger traffic increased tenfold and generated annual revenues in excess of $300 million and operating profits of $16 million.
While in Europe Jonathan formed Barlow Partners, an investment group created to invest in undervalued airline equities. Mesa's financial and operational performance had deteriorated significantly since 1996, with losses over the previous two years exceeding $100 million and by April of 1998 the company was experiencing losses of approximately $1 million per week and had approximately $8 million in cash. Barlow acquired approximately 8% of Mesa's common stock and placed two of its Partners on the Company's Board of Directors. While retaining his position as Chairman of Virgin, Jonathan resigned as CEO and accepted Mesa's offer to return as President and CEO where he orchestrated a comprehensive operational and financial restructuring, paving the way for Mesa's return to profitability.
Since returning in 1998, Jonathan oversaw the elimination of over 150 turboprops, the reestablishment of a partnership with United, raising of over $200 million of convertible debt financing; the ordering of 128 regional jets from Bombardier and Embraer -- valued at over $2.5 billion -- growing from 4 regional jets when he arrived to 132 currently, hiring a dynamic new management team; firming up long-term codeshare agreements with America West and US Airways and the institution of a number of innovative employee programs. In addition, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Jonathan was the first CEO to voluntarily cut his pay by 50 percent, created a voluntary pay reduction / incentive program that resulted in all participating employees receiving effectively a 7.5% bonus and negotiated, in record-time, new pilot and flight attendant contracts. The Company was recently named 2005 Regional Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine.
Following the restructuring, Mesa has been at the forefront of the regional airline industry and has reported 26 profitable quarters out of a total of 27 quarters. However, on one point, Jonathan is clear; the turnaround at Mesa air Group continues. He credits Mesa's continued success with the teamwork and efforts of the airline's 5,000 employees. Jonathan and the Mesa team continue their efforts to provide job security and opportunities for all its employees. The focus moving forward is to maintain Mesa's superior operational performance, maintain its strong relationships with its airline partners; expand opportunistically and profitably, while increasing and shareholder value.
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Jonathan Ornstein began his aviation career in 1987 with Air LA, a small commuter airline based in Los Angeles, California, where his responsibilities ranged from finance and planning to baggage handling and aircraft cleaning. Jonathan's first contact with Mesa occurred in the summer of 1988 during the negotiation of Air LA's sublease of a Mesa aircraft and in 1989, Jonathan accepted a job offer from Mesa with the prestigious title of "Assistant to the President". At Mesa Jonathan was eventually responsible for all scheduling, pricing, fleet planning and acquisitions.
Over the next six years, working with Mesa's CEO Larry Risley, Jonathan directed Mesa's acquisition of Aspen Airways (United Express), Air Midwest (US Air Express), WestAir (United Express) and Crown Airways. During this time, Mesa's annual revenues grew from $11 million to over $500 million, pretax income rose from $240,000 to $45 million and the number of employees increased from 165 to 3,000. In recognition of its success, the Company was named 1992 Regional Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine.
At the time of Mesa's purchase, WestAir was both the largest, as well as the most unprofitable, independent regional airline in the US. Following Mesa's purchase, Jonathan was appointed President of WestAir. After a significant restructuring, WestAir broke its string of ten consecutive quarterly losses and posted a pretax profit exceeding $15 million, up from a pretax loss of $12 million twelve months earlier.
Returning to Mesa headquarters in 1993, Jonathan Ornstein worked closely with Texas Pacific Group and Continental in the bankruptcy reorganization of America West. In recognition of Mesa's help in the America West restructuring, as well as Mesa's operational capabilities, the Company was chosen to provide regional operations for America West. In addition, Mesa invested $20 million in America West which it later sold for a $47 million profit.
As a result of the work Jonathan performed in the America West restructuring, Continental's Chairman and General Partner of the Texas Pacific Group David Bonderman offered Jonathan the opportunity to become President and CEO of Continental Express. Like WestAir, Continental Express had been significantly unprofitable for a number of years and with the lessons learned from his experience at Mesa, Jonathan and his new management team quickly implemented a major restructuring. Jonathan also concurrently served as Senior Vice President Airport Operations for Continental Airlines overseeing the successful restructuring of Continental's operations. In recognition of his accomplishments at Continental, Jonathan was selected as Regional Airline Executive of the Year for 1995, an award presented by Commuter/Regional Airline News - the industry's publication of record - and Rolls-Royce.
After Continental chose not to spin off the now-successful Continental Express, Ornstein accepted an offer from Richard Branson to develop a low-cost, low-fare jet carrier in Europe. In 1996, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Express, based in Brussels, Belgium. During his tenure at Virgin Express, Jonathan took the company from a fledgling startup to a publicly traded company operating a fleet of over 25 737s throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. By 1998 the airline's passenger traffic increased tenfold and generated annual revenues in excess of $300 million and operating profits of $16 million.
While in Europe Jonathan formed Barlow Partners, an investment group created to invest in undervalued airline equities. Mesa's financial and operational performance had deteriorated significantly since 1996, with losses over the previous two years exceeding $100 million and by April of 1998 the company was experiencing losses of approximately $1 million per week and had approximately $8 million in cash. Barlow acquired approximately 8% of Mesa's common stock and placed two of its Partners on the Company's Board of Directors. While retaining his position as Chairman of Virgin, Jonathan resigned as CEO and accepted Mesa's offer to return as President and CEO where he orchestrated a comprehensive operational and financial restructuring, paving the way for Mesa's return to profitability.
Since returning in 1998, Jonathan oversaw the elimination of over 150 turboprops, the reestablishment of a partnership with United, raising of over $200 million of convertible debt financing; the ordering of 128 regional jets from Bombardier and Embraer -- valued at over $2.5 billion -- growing from 4 regional jets when he arrived to 132 currently, hiring a dynamic new management team; firming up long-term codeshare agreements with America West and US Airways and the institution of a number of innovative employee programs. In addition, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Jonathan was the first CEO to voluntarily cut his pay by 50 percent, created a voluntary pay reduction / incentive program that resulted in all participating employees receiving effectively a 7.5% bonus and negotiated, in record-time, new pilot and flight attendant contracts. The Company was recently named 2005 Regional Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine.
Following the restructuring, Mesa has been at the forefront of the regional airline industry and has reported 26 profitable quarters out of a total of 27 quarters. However, on one point, Jonathan is clear; the turnaround at Mesa air Group continues. He credits Mesa's continued success with the teamwork and efforts of the airline's 5,000 employees. Jonathan and the Mesa team continue their efforts to provide job security and opportunities for all its employees. The focus moving forward is to maintain Mesa's superior operational performance, maintain its strong relationships with its airline partners; expand opportunistically and profitably, while increasing and shareholder value.
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Mesa Air Group, Inc.
The Mesa Air Group team currently numbers approximately 5000 people working from locations all across the United States. Our company is built on our partnerships with Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and USAirways. We also have our own independent low cost airline flying inter-island services as go! in Hawai'i. In all, our fleet of 159 aircraft performs more than 750 daily departures to 129 citiies, 39 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, the Bahamas and Mexico.