Opinion ID: 78433
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Detrimental Change

Text: Nor, finally, can we agree with Delta that Mesa cannot show that the flights that Mesa agreed to cancel as a courtesy to Delta would have reached their destination but for Delta's actions. The district court found that Mesa had a legal right to refuse to comply with Delta's cancellation requests, and credited Mesa witnesses who testified that they would have immediately stopped acquiescing to Delta's requests if they had known that Delta intended to count hundreds of coordinated cancellations toward Mesa's completion rate. Further, the record suggests that during this period, Delta directed the cancellation of Mesa flights in order to give preference to its own flights. For instance, during October and December of 2007, Delta ordered the cancellation of 5.5% of Mesa's flights. By contrast, Delta cancelled approximately 1.6% of its own flights during this period. In October 2007 alone, Delta directed the cancellation of 78 Mesa flights while cancelling only 8 of its own. In light of all this, it was not clear error for the court to find that but for Delta's assurances, Mesa would likely have operated a number of the flights that were cancelled at Delta's request.