PSA to Skywest Questions. Please help me out SKW Guys & Gals

[LyodChristmas]

So I'm thinking about putting my resume in to Skywest sometime in the next week or so. I'm flying over at PSA right now and there is no movement for FO's as well as some terrible work rules/pay/schedules..etc.

Anyways I've been here a little over a year, so I'm not looking forward to going back on first year pay. I made about 22k last year on my W2 bringing home maybe 1500 a month on average (I was on reserve for 11 months). Doing a little better now with second year pay (about 23-2500 a month).

Bills being what they are my number one concern is if I can afford to do this. My buddy said I should do a little better over at skywest on first year pay then I did at PSA but I was wondering if current FO's could share some insight. So my questions are....

What could I expect a month once I can hold a line on first year pay?

How much did you make on your first year W2?

Can you add a girlfriend to the domestic partner pass? whats that intail? I have her on my registered guest pass now and it's nice.

If I was based in ORD do you guys ever get Cali overnights out of that base? I have friends in SAN!

How do you like the schedules? Trip Trade software? (is it automatic? because we wait 24 hours for a scheduler to approve or not, and there is never any open time to trade with and almost no ability to trade with other crew members or post trips you want to drop)

Is it hard to pick up and extra day or two for extra cash?

Doesn't skywest have a deal with southwest where you can buy cheap tickets?

Is it a fun place to work? Good crews?

Do you tend to stay downtown or out in a field somewhere?

Well I guess that's it. My big concern is if I'll be as poor as I was last year, and if I'll have some what of a QOL improvements.

Thank you!

 

[Mookie]

bail...do it...immediately....

there are a ton of ex psa cowboys at skywest..
mookie

 

[pipers]

So I'm thinking about putting my resume in to Skywest sometime in the next week or so. I'm flying over at PSA right now and there is no movement for FO's as well as some terrible work rules/pay/schedules..etc.

Anyways I've been here a little over a year, so I'm not looking forward to going back on first year pay. I made about 22k last year on my W2 bringing home maybe 1500 a month on average (I was on reserve for 11 months). Doing a little better now with second year pay (about 23-2500 a month).

Bills being what they are my number one concern is if I can afford to do this. My buddy said I should do a little better over at skywest on first year pay then I did at PSA but I was wondering if current FO's could share some insight. So my questions are....

What could I expect a month once I can hold a line on first year pay?

How much did you make on your first year W2?

Can you add a girlfriend to the domestic partner pass? whats that intail? I have her on my registered guest pass now and it's nice.

If I was based in ORD do you guys ever get Cali overnights out of that base? I have friends in SAN!

How do you like the schedules? Trip Trade software? (is it automatic? because we wait 24 hours for a scheduler to approve or not, and there is never any open time to trade with and almost no ability to trade with other crew members or post trips you want to drop)

Is it hard to pick up and extra day or two for extra cash?

Doesn't skywest have a deal with southwest where you can buy cheap tickets?

Is it a fun place to work? Good crews?

Do you tend to stay downtown or out in a field somewhere?

Well I guess that's it. My big concern is if I'll be as poor as I was last year, and if I'll have some what of a QOL improvements.

Thank you!

Mr Lyod, at the risk of hijacked thread, I'll do my best to answer...

1) first year pay still sucks, but the average W2 (that I know of) seemed to be in the mid-twenties. Second year is a hell of a lot better. I made as much by May my second year as I had my whole first year. PM me if you want more info on it........

2) Domestic partner, be it gal or guy, are no problem on the pass. You can't beat the deal on Delta flights in the US/Central and South America

3) I rarely fly with a tool.....

4) Really depends on the overnight....MEM and SAN are downtown....SAT is a bit off the beaten trail. By and large they are usually OK. We do have long and short overnights for some cities. IE, DEN, if it is short your by the airport, long...downtown.

5) Don't know too much about ORD.......know it goes through SFO but probably not SAN

6) Schedules all depend on seniority...senior guys love PBS and junior guys can get screwed sometimes.....by and large, most are happy with PBS. One plus for junior guys is that you become a line holder a lot sooner. Not nearly as many reserve lines because all vacation/training are preassigned.

7) Plenty of stuff to pick up right now.......no shortage. At the least you can sit reserve for 3.45 + junior man pay.

8) Southwest tickets are available........others as well.

9) The computer can swap trip automatically within minutes. You have to trade up in credit or you can drop trips online and they stay posted until another crew member picks them up....

Hope that helps, sorry for the poor order.........all in all its not a bad place. Works for me and many others. First year does sting, but being a line holder and picking up a few extra trips (anything within 10 days is time and 1/2) you should be ok......second year is a big difference (19 to 34). PM me if you have more questions........good luck

 

[CheeseDick]

Probably averaged 1700 month including per diem. Other guys work harder than me, you should be able to get 95-100 hours a month if you really want it.

Girlfriends are a nogo on the travel pass. If you are engaged you can get an unsigned marriage license and then she can go. I've heard they are working on this

CAL overnights go senior out of ORD. Lucky if you get to the west coast until you get in the 70

PBS sucks, I screw myself into 6 on 2 off constantly but that's because I refuse to learn the software. Others are much better at it than I. Trip trades happen pretty quickly, both have been nearly instantaneously each time I've done it. Plenty of open time if you are into that whole work extra thing.

No clue on cheap SW tickets

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

Our deal with Southwest intails [sic] getting passes for $25 each way for eligibles or the unlimited jump for the pilot-types. Most of the questions you asked are relatively seniority issues, other than your travel companion (if you two share a lease, banking account and the like, it shouldn't be a problem; if not, um...good luck). This board has plenty of the information on there relative to your others...

 

[fastback]

Getting your gf on your travel can be a hassle, but it's doable. You just have to meet the requirements for a domestic partnership. If you're on the same lease it's easier, but without that, I think you have to show a joint bank account, joint credit card [both are pretty easy, an hour or two of legwork], and have a domestic partnership document notarized. It's not too tough if you're serious enough with her to put her on your sh!t [read into that however you want!]. WN tickets I think $35 each segment. Best!

edit: They prob are $25 a piece. My bad.

 

[bobbyice]

Just be yourself and be honest.You'll be alright.

 

[viper548]

First year pay sucks here too but if you have 2500TT/1000turbine, a quick upgrade in the EMB may make the first year pretty painless

 

[LyodChristmas]

Thanks guys!

Is it true also that there is a short time after the bid comes out that you can drop trips and pick up trips?
My friend used to work for southwest and was saying they could do that there too, he'd drop his whole month and build himself a new schedule. If you can do that at skywest that's awesome, so I was just wondering.

With PBS can you request certain days off. Like say you needed the 15h-17th off for a wedding can you put in to not work 15-17?

ORD guys.. How are those trips out of chicago? Do you do alot of ORD-XYZ / XYZ-ORD all day. Or do you leave ORD and go point to point and end up like down in Utah or Cali two days later. With PSA we do hub and spoke all day, it get boring!

Thanks again guys, you've been very helpful!

 

[avrodriver]

Wn Tickets

Just so you know. The Southwest deal is not specific to Skywest, just about every airline I know is able to get this same deal through thier pass department. For you I think it is easier than that...just go to a US Airways ticket counter.

 

[Weasil]

Thanks guys!

Is it true also that there is a short time after the bid comes out that you can drop trips and pick up trips?

No, the flight attendants have this feature. We just got the software finished for the pilots and it is supposed to be up and running sometime soon.

With PBS can you request certain days off. Like say you needed the 15h-17th off for a wedding can you put in to not work 15-17?

ORD guys.. How are those trips out of chicago? Do you do alot of ORD-XYZ / XYZ-ORD all day. Or do you leave ORD and go point to point and end up like down in Utah or Cali two days later. With PSA we do hub and spoke all day, it get boring!

Thanks again guys, you've been very helpful!

PBS let's you request almost anything you want, the trick is learning to bid to get what you should be able to hold based on seniority, not so easy. Although as an ORD local I get what ever I want even though I'm bidding about 70% of the way down the FO list right now because I want what commuters don't want which is locals. As for the trips there is a good blend of everything. Hub and spoke or 4 days which don't come back through ORD until the end. I saw a great 3 day recently

5864 ORD-YYC 1455 1745 350 334 145 R7U -- -- -- 1
TH 6381 YYC-SFO 1930 2113 243 243 117 R7U
TH 6412 SFO-EUG 2230 2352 122 122 R7U 755 0 739 1157 2919
D-END: 0007L REPT: 0526L S0900
VALLEY RIVER INN 541 687 0123
SA 6401 EUG-SFO 0611 0737 126 126 103 R7U
SA 6348 SFO-YYC 0840 1218 238 238 39 R7U
SA 6532 YYC-ORD 1257 1715 318 312 R7U 722 0 716 1004
D-END: 1730L -----------------------
TOTALS BLOCK 1517 DHD 0 LDGS: 6 CREDIT 1840 T.A.F.B. 5120
========================================================================​

-

What a fun trip, you credit almost 7 hrs the first day, get all of day 2 off and still get paid guarantee for the day and block almost 8 hours the last day. A 3 day trip worth 19hrs of credit and you get the whole second day off in Eugene. I wish I had bid for that one now but it probably went senior.

 

[EngineOut]

What could I expect a month once I can hold a line on first year pay?
DEN CRJ...on reserve for 2 weeks after IOE. Lineholder since. I gross around $2300-2500 per month w/per diem averaging about 95 hours credit. I don't pick up trips and I'll drop a turn or two for commutability.

How much did you make on your first year W2?
N/A (haven't been here a full year yet).

Can you add a girlfriend to the domestic partner pass? whats that intail? I have her on my registered guest pass now and it's nice.
I've tried to add my fiance, but it's a pain. It shouldn't be. We're working on the joint account thing now.

If I was based in ORD do you guys ever get Cali overnights out of that base? I have friends in SAN!
Seems like DEN folks are flowed through the ORD system a lot and the ORD folks are flowed through the SLC/DEN system a lot. So anything is possible.

How do you like the schedules? Trip Trade software? (is it automatic? because we wait 24 hours for a scheduler to approve or not, and there is never any open time to trade with and almost no ability to trade with other crew members or post trips you want to drop)
PBS is better than hardlines IMO, but it has the capability to be even better. The trading/dropping process is a pain. I have had no issues with commutable pairings. I do budget three hotel nights a month, though. I haven't had to use them often, but I'm realistic. You cannot do what your SWA buddies do (drop your whole schedule into open time). I'm told XJT can do that...and then rebuild the schedule with open time. I WISH we could do that! That would be pretty useful.


Is it hard to pick up and extra day or two for extra cash?
No. Not hard at all right now since we're rather shorthanded. Lots of open time and swap board trips at the moment.

Doesn't skywest have a deal with southwest where you can buy cheap tickets?
Already been answered.

Is it a fun place to work? Good crews?
Great place so far! There are always a few tools in the shed, but for the most part, everyone is great.

Do you tend to stay downtown or out in a field somewhere?
Varies with the overnight. XNA is definitely out in a field...literally.

Well I guess that's it. My big concern is if I'll be as poor as I was last year, and if I'll have some what of a QOL improvements.
Depends where you live and where you want to live. It surely isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm pretty happy with my choice. If I could move to DEN, I would be ecstatic with my choice. Commuting sucks, no matter where you are and who you work for.

 

[Weasil]

Do you tend to stay downtown or out in a field somewhere?
Varies with the overnight. XNA is definitely out in a field...literally.

.

XNA we stay at the same place psa does!

 

[LyodChristmas]

Engineout- Dude we (PSA) stay at the same place in XNA! It's in a damn field, and like up on a little friggin hill too ha ha!

 

[Weasil]

I'm guessing there wasn't much to choose from around there. Most of our overnights have a close hotel for the standups and a nice hotel downtown or near stuff for the long overnights, at least in my experience so far they are way way better than the crap PSA would stick us in in the middle of friggin nowhere all the time. Although PSA did used to have that awesome overnight in DCA at the crowne plaza but they took that back.

 

[bmpilot2003]

How do you like the schedules? Trip Trade software? (is it automatic? because we wait 24 hours for a scheduler to approve or not, and there is never any open time to trade with and almost no ability to trade with other crew members or post trips you want to drop)
PBS is better than hardlines IMO, but it has the capability to be even better. The trading/dropping process is a pain. I have had no issues with commutable pairings. I do budget three hotel nights a month, though. I haven't had to use them often, but I'm realistic. You cannot do what your SWA buddies do (drop your whole schedule into open time). I'm told XJT can do that...and then rebuild the schedule with open time. I WISH we could do that! That would be pretty useful.

If you have been here less than a year how do you know PBS is better than hard lines? Somebody told you that? You would never know, you never had the chance to bid hard lines!

 

[EngineOut]

If you have been here less than a year how do you know PBS is better than hard lines? Somebody told you that? You would never know, you never had the chance to bid hard lines!

Good point, but I've worked and bid elsewhere sans PBS. IMO means in my opinion. And nowhere did I say SkyWest PBS is better than SkyWest hardlines. In fact many senior SkyWest people told me that they don't care much for PBS and prefer hardlines.

My experience is that PBS allows for more flexibility than hard lines.

If you have different experience, please share.

 

[SkyNation]

I'll say it:

"PBS is better than hard lines."

my opinion, I've done both, been here almost 3 years. your experience my differ.

 

[jayme]

PBS has worked fine for me except for vacation. We still have the old accrual rate, but a week of master vacation costs more under PBS than it did with hard lines.

With hard lines, if you had 4, 21 hours credit 4-day trips, 4 on 3 off, a week of vacation cost you 21 hours. AND you got a couple extra days off before or after your vacation (depending on which days of the week your 4 day trip fell on) for a total of 10 days vacation. Under PBS, your week costs you 21 hours, but the odds of having days off touch your vacation are slim to none. If you choose to take the min credit for vacation and only burn 17.5 hours vacation, PBS will have to load up your schedule to bring you up to 75 (or 80 on the Brasilia). Enjoy 6 on 1 off for the rest of the month.

The accrual rate has to be increased so that you can elect to use 4 hours or so per day so that the rest of your month would be comparable to what you would have had under hard lines. Otherwise it's a concession.

 

[Socalplt]

PBS has been way better to me than the old hard line system. I'm in a larger domicile which helps, as most of the complaints seem to come out of the smaller domiciles. The larger domiciles seem to have better pairings to pick from which helps alot. I've also had 2-3 days off on either side of my vacation as well, just bid my off days that way. FWIW I bid around 160-170 out of 350.

 

[LyodChristmas]

Whats your schedules look like for the month?

At PSA this month I started with 6 off ina row then 2 then 4 then 2. But trip traded and picked up 2 days out of the 4 day off strech.
(14 off on a build up line more me was a dream come true!)

The most senior line at our company only gave 14 days off for the past few month. most people get from 10-13.

I hope it's better at skywest!

Any chance of seeing 16-20 days off at skywest? I know express jet and republic guys can swing that if they are senior enough.

 

[jayme]

I've also had 2-3 days off on either side of my vacation as well, just bid my off days that way. FWIW I bid around 160-170 out of 350.

How many hours of vacation did that cost you?

 

[Socalplt]

I usually use just 2.5 hours a day/17.5 week. Don't want to really use any more than that with the crummy accrual rates. With 7 years seniority and averaging 90+ hours a month I'd guess I only accrue 50-55 hours.

 

[Socalplt]

Whats your schedules look like for the month?

At PSA this month I started with 6 off ina row then 2 then 4 then 2. But trip traded and picked up 2 days out of the 4 day off strech.
(14 off on a build up line more me was a dream come true!)

The most senior line at our company only gave 14 days off for the past few month. most people get from 10-13.

I hope it's better at skywest!

Any chance of seeing 16-20 days off at skywest? I know express jet and republic guys can swing that if they are senior enough.

With the seniority in SLC you could fly locals that credit 7-8 hours, 2 days that pay 12-14, and the occasional 4 day that pays 25hrs+. Working only 80 hours a month you could get 18-20 days off. Maybe 10-20 percent of the pilots fall into this category. At the same time we have locals that only pay min daily guarantee of 3:45 to 4 day trips only paying 16 hours. You could be down to 10-12 days off with just 75-80 hours for the month. I believe the average runs somwhere around 15 days off a month.

The 700/900 flying usually consist of longer legs/greater credit for the day.

 

[LyodChristmas]

Thanks guys! Anyone know how the commute from BWI - ORD would be?

 

[BenderGonzales]

I still can't believe they put you guys in that Wingate at XNA. Don't you have a hotel committee to complain to???

Drive another 10 minutes into Bentonville and they have every hotel you could imagine (plus restaurants, shopping, movie theaters, etc.)

Embassy Suites, Amerisuites, Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn, Hilton Garden, a new Doubletree is about to open, LaQuinta, they just broke ground on a Westin.

The Embassy is across the street from a new shopping/entertainment complex called Pinnacle Promenade: http://pinnaclehillspromenade.com and an upscale shopping area with a great bar called Eddie Haskells.

You should raise a ruckus and change hotels. (Unless they're short overnights then I suppose it doesn't matter)

 

[ex j-41]

You should raise a ruckus and change hotels. (Unless they're short overnights then I suppose it doesn't matter)

Only 18 hrs....Yea the hotel is nice but the location is totally unacceptable. But that doesn't matter. Crew moral is just not a concern at PSA. Only when the on time performance suffers will PSA ever get better. We did get scheduling to authorize a taxi service from the hotel in XNA to "Downtown" and it cost them $56. Now if everyone will do that everyday then the hotel will change. till then....

 

[bender]

My classmates and I are in the bottom 10% of lineholders in ORD. Our schedules are all pretty much 90+ hour credit with 10-11 days off.

 

[Going2Baja]

bail...do it...immediately....

there are a ton of ex psa cowboys at skywest..
mookie

But the real question is Mook - Do YOU miss it?

Baja - Another FNG on the NG