Mesa Airlines

Mesa is the Phoenix regional airline that flew for United and American at different points. In November 2025 it completed a merger with Republic Airways, and Republic kept the combined flying contracts.

A small passenger jet climbing under a dark sky — Illustrative photo, not an aircraft of Mesa Airlines.

5.1 millionpassengers, 2025
74seats per flight on average
631 milesaverage trip per passenger
47.2seat-miles per gallon

How it changed

Mesa Airlines carried 5.1 million passengers in 2025. Its busiest year was 2019, at 15.1 million.

Its average flight had 48 seats in 2002 and 74 in 2025, a sign of larger aircraft replacing smaller ones. The average passenger flew 452 miles per segment in 2002 and 631 in 2025, and 82% of its seat-miles were filled in 2025.

Mesa Airlines passengers per year, 2002 to 2025.

Who it flew for

Mesa Airlines flew for more than one airline, and sometimes several at once. Our estimate of the split between them, which is based on the airports it serves, is too rough to publish for a regional like this. The summary at the top names its partners from public record.

The fleet

Mesa Airlines operated 60 passenger aircraft of its own in 2025. The average age was 9.7 years: 0% of the aircraft were under five years old and 0% were twenty or older. The oldest was an Embraer E175 built in 2014.

In 2006 the average age was 5.2 years across 143 aircraft. It's older now by 4.5 years, and the fleet is smaller.

Mesa Airlines aircraft by model, 2025

Model	Aircraft	Average seats	Average age
Embraer E175	60	74	9.7

Fuel

In 2025 Mesa Airlines burned 82 million gallons of jet fuel, which is 47.2 seat-miles per gallon and about 0.252 kg of CO2 per passenger-mile. Over 500 miles that's roughly 126 kg per passenger. Small regional aircraft burn more fuel per seat than the mainline jets, and a short hop spends a larger share of its fuel on take-off and climb, so these figures aren't graded against the airlines on the main list. Their flying and fuel are counted in the airlines whose names are on the tickets.

For some years Mesa Airlines didn't file usable fuel figures with BTS. In 2 of them we priced its own flight hours at the fuel burn per hour that other airlines reported for the same aircraft types that year. They're marked with an asterisk in the table below. See the methodology.

Year-by-year figures

Year	Passengers (millions)	Departures (thousands)	Seats per flight	Average trip (miles)	Load factor	Seat-miles (billions)	Seat-miles per gallon
2025	5.1	85	74.2	631	82.1%	3.89	47.2
2024	5.7	93	74.6	551	83.3%	3.75	45.7
2023	6.2	100	75.5	551	83.7%	4.09	51.0
2022	7.8	120	76.6	635	85.9%	5.78	50.0
2021	10.0	167	75.9	667	79.5%	8.37	49.9
2020	6.9	139	75.7	626	65.9%	6.52	55.6
2019	15.1	248	75.9	588	81.3%	10.91	48.5
2018	14.3	234	75.9	577	81.5%	10.13	48.4
2017	13.4	222	75.8	560	80.7%	9.34	48.5
2016	13.1	214	75.7	577	81.7%	9.22	49.2
2015	11.4	184	76.0	560	82.1%	7.81	49.2
2014	9.1	146	75.7	507	82.5%	5.59	47.9
2013	8.6	144	74.3	469	82.7%	4.86	47.9
2012	7.7	135	70.7	469	83.3%	4.32	46.1
2011	8.4	155	70.1	460	80.5%	4.81	51.9
2010	9.1	175	68.3	447	79.0%	5.15	56.5
2009	11.0	243	61.4	437	76.8%	6.28	61.4
2008	11.3	255	61.0	450	76.6%	6.63	54.1
2007	13.1	290	60.4	437	77.5%	7.39	50.4
2006	13.4	301	59.4	454	76.8%	7.91	43.2
2005	13.0	328	58.5	483	69.5%	9.04	45.6
2004	10.2	267	54.1	499	72.0%	7.04	42.9
2003	5.3	170	48.4	462	65.5%	3.70	40.9*
2002	1.2	39	47.8	452	64.1%	0.81	39.1*

Regionals with shared partners

These profiles have a partner airline in common with Mesa Airlines in at least one data year. The partner split is estimated, and the airlines may have flown for the shared network at different times.

Nearby in fuel efficiency

Neighbours in the seat-miles per gallon table, using each airline's last data year. Fuel estimates are marked on the profiles, and these aren't same-year rankings.

Shuttle America45.5 seat-miles per gallon, 2016 Executive Airlines46.1 seat-miles per gallon, 2012 Mesaba Airlines47.2 seat-miles per gallon, 2011 Compass Airlines48.4 seat-miles per gallon, 2020

Airline references

Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), T-100 traffic and Schedule T-2 fuel filings; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor. Methods and allocation limits.

Back to all regional airlines or the fuel rankings.