The parent of go! airline said it will report a loss for its latest fiscal year.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group said it will delay its financials for the year ending Sept. 30 to review "certain estimates and reserves that may affect the financial statements."

The notice comes a day after a federal bankruptcy judge refused to set aside a ruling that Mesa pay $80 million to Hawaiian Airlines for misusing confidential information.

Shares of Mesa rose 84 cents, or 23.1 percent, to close at $4.47 on the Nasdaq market yesterday. In after-hours trading, the stock dropped to $3.99.

Mesa's projected loss compares with a profit of $34 million, or 84 cents a share, for its fiscal 2006.

For the first nine months this year, Mesa has lost $13.4 million, or 42 cents a share, due largely to a $38 million pretax charge it took during the second quarter.

Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research Inc. were forecasting earnings of 67 cents a share this year.

Last month, Mesa fired Chief Financial Officer Peter Murnane, whose destruction of evidence resulted in the $80 million judgment.

Mesa, which is appealing the award, said Murnane accidentally erased the data when he was deleting pornographic material from his work computers.

Murnane's replacement, William Hoke, is responsible for the company's financial reports.

go! touched off a price war when it opened for business in Hawai'i on June 9, 2006, with $39 one-way interisland tickets.

The startup airline also has offered one-way fares at various times for $29, $19 and $9. Aloha and Hawaiian have matched the discounts each time.

The low-fare environment has been costly for Hawai'i's carriers. Hawaiian and Aloha lost a combined $82.1 million last year.

A recent study for Aloha by Texas-based Sabre Airline Solutions concluded that the three interisland carriers are each losing money when they sell interisland tickets below $50.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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