(Photo Credit: Cindy Ellen Russell)

The day of reckoning for Mesa Air Group is here.

Hawaiian Airlines goes to court today in its effort to prove that Mesa Air Group used information that it obtained under a confidentiality agreement while Hawaiian was in bankruptcy – as a part of its competing regional airline start-up.

While the suit here has been moving along for more than a year — in the last two weeks, we’ve seen a couple of bombs land in this one and it would be safe to say that Mesa CFO Peter Murnane has been the target.

Murnane, who was already at the center of the Hawaiian complaint against Mesa, is now alleged by Hawaiian in a separate complaint of having deliberately “scrubbed” hard drives of pertinent information pertaining to the case. Three computers and a server (I would presume this was the Mesa Air Group server) were allegedly purged of information pertinent to Hawaiian’s complaint.

From recent filings, it appears Hawaiian has proof that Murnane sought advice on how to clean the hard drives in a way that it would not appear they had been tampered with.

In layman’s terms, it’s usually called “obstruction of justice” and is a felony.

In normal terms, it’s called, “Just Plain Stupid.” Oh and you can throw arrogant in there as well. (To think you can do this and get away with it.)

Over the weekend, we then saw Mesa trying to “distance” itself from Murnane, following the news last week that Murnane had hired a noted criminal defense attorney to represent himself in the proceedings.

I must admit, I had had a good chuckle at the release the airline issued on …Saturday. (Insert normal comment about “trying to bury the news” here.)

And I quote,

“The administrative leave will be for a period of up to 90 days, pending the Company’s completion of its review of this matter. The Company cannot predict the outcome of this investigation. Until the investigation is complete, William Hoke, Vice President of Finance will continue to be responsible for the financial and accounting functions of the Company and will perform the duties of Mr. Murnane.

Mr. Ornstein continued “Our policy is to comply with only the highest ethical standards of conduct and, if we become aware of a potential or alleged violation of such standards, to conduct an appropriate investigation and to take appropriate remedial action when warranted. We will report the outcome of the Company’s investigation as soon as it is completed.”

Uh-huh. Right.

I guess Mr. Ornstein thinks he can fool some people with this PR positioning blather, but I think most of us know that the ties between Murnane and Ornstein are thick, long, and wide.

We were told Monday that the “scrubbing” filing will probably not be the only surprise we may hear about as part of Hawaiian’s case against Mesa.

We’re all ears.

Great summary of all this mess at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Ticker: (Nasdaq: Mesa), (NYSE: HA)

Technorati Tags: airline CEOs, airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Mesa Airlines

Gobble gobble. There was an interesting European airline deal announced this week — as Air Berlin announced a deal to take over charter airline Condor in February 2009.

Thomas Cook, the travel conglomerate, said this week that it would exchange its 75.1% stake in Condor for just under 30% in Air Berlin and an undisclosed amount of cash.

Depending upon Air Berlin’s stock price in 17 months, the deal could be worth between $705 and $845 million.

Only one interesting part to all this. Lufthansa owns 24.9% of Condor and reports this week indicated that the deal was put together without Lufthansa’s blessing.

This is no small thing as Air Berlin is now Lufthansa’s biggest domestic rival. (Air Berlin is on a merger tear, having already purchased  German carriers DBA and LTU.)

In addition, Condor and LTU are Germany’s two biggest charter carriers, according to the Financial Times.

Dunno. 17 months is an eternity in this business.

Will be interesting to see how this one pans out. As for Air Berlin, I think it currently has its hands full trying to put the pieces together with DBA and LTU.

Technorati Tags: Air Berlin, airlines, Condor, Lufthansa

Let’s see. My Mickey Mouse hands show 12:02.

Yay! By DOT standards, we’re ontime!

I know, not saying much, but hey. Just trying to interject some humor here.

Subscribers to PlaneBusiness Banter can now access this week’s issue here.



The rest of you — well, I guess you can now catch the rest of Jerry Springer.

Hang in there. We’re coming up here shortly.

Won’t be too late tomorrow. We are basically done with this week’s issue, but it’s been a hectic day here at the WWH, and I want to give it a once over in the AM with clear eyes before putting it out for public consumption. We’ve also had a number of changes come in tonight including an update from Alaska on the Horizon situation with their Q400s, a couple of stock rating changes from Goldman Sachs, and ATA RASM figures for August just came out as well.

Besides, it will give you something to look forward to.

By the way, condolences to you in parts of Florida. Looks like you’re taking a beating from whatever this thing is in the Gulf.

Talk to you guys later.

MarketWatch reports:

“The House of Representatives has passed a bill authorizing $68 billion in funding for the Federal Aviation Administration over the next four years, underwriting a major upgrade to the nation’s air traffic control system, paid for partly by higher jet fuel taxes. It also gave airports the ability to raise passenger facility charges to $7 from $4.50 a ticket and requires airlines to have plans to remove passengers from planes after long ground delays. The bill increased the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots to 65 from 60. Representatives voted 267 to 151 in favor of the bill, H.R. 2881, which falls short of the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto. The White House said Wednesday it would veto H.R. 2881.”