CEO Spotlight: Jonathan Ornstein, Mesa Airlines

Mesa Airlines has been at the forefront of the push to adopt electric aircraft and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. Along with its partner, United Airlines, the Arizona-based regional carrier has placed conditional orders for up to 200 of Archer Aviation’s Midnight air taxis and up to 100 of Heart Aerospace’s ES-30 electric regional airliners. In an exclusive interview with Aviation Week, Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein explained why he is bullish on the advanced air mobility (AAM) sector despite an ongoing shortage of regional pilots that has harmed the profitability of short-haul regional jet service. An abridged transcript follows

Aviation Week: Mesa is positioning itself as one of the first regional carriers to operate eVTOLs. Why are you bullish on these new vehicles?

Ornstein: I was initially quite skeptical. But my skepticism wasn’t about the cost and viability of operating eVTOLs. It wasn’t even about certification–although I do expect that to take longer. My concern was much more basic. There’s just no way everybody in Beverly Hills was going to be happy having these damn things flying over their head all day. Right? Not because of safety, just because of noise. I was worried it would sound like a bunch of bees flying over your house. But I went out to Archer’s [Maker] demonstration, and it was one of the coolest things. That aircraft was flying at 380 feet and you basically couldn’t hear it. And now, in my mind at least, the biggest hurdle–the noise–may have not been a hurdle at all. I was a believer before, with some degree of skepticism. Now I’m a believer, period. 

Aviation Week: How do you envision incorporating eVTOL aircraft into your existing operations?

Ornstein: I’m very close with Adam Goldstein [Archer’s CEO]. And one of the first things we talked about when the deal came together was how these aircraft would actually be flown. At first, they had this dream of being Uber in the air. And I told him that it’s just not going to happen. You’re never going to be able to drop people off at their front door, and that’s the bottom line. I actually played a pretty major role in refocusing Archer away from point-to-point flying–because every regional airline that’s ever tried to fly point-to-point has failed. Instead, we focused on a business plan that said let’s feed this airline where we’ve got infrastructure on one end already built at the airport. So that downtown ride to the airport, which might take an hour and a half by car on a bad day, could take just 10 minutes. And probably the airline would also pay a for chunk of that ride just to garner the traffic.

Aviation Week: But what about pilots? Are there enough pilots to fly all these anticipated eVTOLs?

Ornstein: For smaller aircraft, part 135 aircraft, I don’t think it’s a challenge because you can find pilots with low time who will be able to fly those aircraft. There are some requirements, but they’re less rigorous. Actually, we think they could be good for time-building and getting pilots through the pipeline. Where I do see a problem is that we’ve already got a hard time staffing 76-seat airplanes today, so how are we going to staff 30-seat airplanes like the ES-30—particularly at the pay rates we see today? But I’m starting to think there’s another possibility. ALPA [Air Line Pilots Association] achieved what they’ve long wanted to do, which was raise wages. They said that higher wages will attract people. And guess what? There are a lot of people coming in. The market will ultimately dictate what wages are, and that is going to attract a lot of young people to the profession.

Aviation Week: How do you view the size of the future eVTOL market relative to the existing helicopter market?

Ornstein: They’re two totally different things. Helicopters are super expensive and they require a ton of maintenance because they shake so much. I think helicopters will always have a demand for heavy-lift utility work, because we’re a long way off before electric engines will be able to do the same work and have the same range as a heavy-lift helicopter. But when it comes to substituting for a car, I assure you, there are plenty of people who have got to catch a flight in Los Angeles or Chicago and do not want to wait an hour in traffic. You don’t even need a big percentage of those people–if you get 5% of them, you’d have a pretty good business.

Aviation Week: Mesa has launched a last-mile drone delivery initiative. What do you think about the challenge of getting FAA approval of cargo drones?

Ornstein: The idea with cargo UAVs is that we’ll prove the concept. Once we’ve had millions of missions without incident, what’s the issue at that point? I think the drone idea for cargo is an incredibly good idea. I think it’s a winner. There are so many places that you could fly within the U.S. without going over people. So the worst-case scenario is the drone crashes and no one gets hurt. I think it will do a lot of things that are really important for society. And the cargo piece, in particular, is how we prove autonomy works. But I don’t think we’ll get there on the passenger side during my lifetime.