Sean Menke, former CEO of Frontier and former EVP of Republic Airlines has now decided to join Pinnacle Airlines, regional airline to Delta Airlines, US Airways and Continental Airlines.  Pinnacle owns Pinnacle Airlines, Mesaba Airlines and Colgan Air (Colgan Air is to be phased out as a brand.)

This, to me, seems like a step down for Menke who I think would have been an excellent candidate for a number of front line airlines.  Since I don’t believe in steps down for an executive of his calibre, I would expect that Mr. Menke sees opportunity for Pinnacle where others don’t.

Still, that’s a tough sell.  Regional airlines are not bastions of high profitability and most (including Pinnacle) having looming problems both with servicing their airline customers as well as dealing with the airliner fleets that are a bit fat with non-profit producing regional jets.  

My own dream job for Mr. Menke was that American Airlines would hire him, preferably as CEO although the likelihood of that was extremely slim.  He has the innovative thinking that a legacy airline could use to compete in the emerging environment we see in the US airline industry. 

I don’t see this as Menke wanting to start a mainline airline with Pinnacle assets.  He’s smart enough to know that CRJ-200s aren’t a recipe for success in such a thing.   The next best guess is that Menke sees an opportunity to introduce some revolution into regional airlines and since he’s already had a good look at the business from his time at Republic, this is my bet.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax