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

[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
========================================================================​

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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.