SkyWeat and street CA's

[3green]

Some one was telling me SkyWest was hiring into the left seat of the E-120. So I asked a friend of mine and he said no, but there were a few guys (all former SkyWest pilots that came back from United) that got E-120 CA in about 6 months Senority. I wouldlove to Fly for SkyWest but am not sure I trust United to keep anyone around. Will SkyWest pull out of DEN in the E-120 when Mesa goes in with DHC-8? And what do the CRJ orders look like the next year or 2, as well as the E-120's. Will they still be around. Also how many aircraft are in the fleet? Thanks for the info. I live in SLC but commute 1100 miles, and the way the industry is going I think I just want to make a good living at a smaller company that treats there employes well. And not have to commute.

 

[Mookie]

It's SkyWest...not Weat....;-)

I'll take a quick stab at this. We weren't hiring into the left seat. It was pretty much dumb luck that a couple of people who had previously been at the company and had 1,000 hrs of 121/135 crew time, and 2,500 hrs tt. Lots of senior Fo's are passing on upgrade or taking the CRJ right seat because of quality of life. There is a huge disparity of qol betweenholding top 10% seniority in base vs. reserve Captain. Combine that with having to commute to reseve, and the increase in pay just isn't worth it for many, myself included. Plus, a jet fo holding a line, and a captain on reseve make similar money considering per diem, and credit hours flown. The difference is that the jet fo will have more days off, and less "caller id unavailable" messages on their phone. We've also opened a bunch of new jet bases, and fo's have been moving to the jet in droves vs. upgrades...again because of quality of life. Lots of people would rather have 15 days off a month based in Santa Barbara or Palm Springs flying a jet, rather than 11 days off commuting to somewhere else.

As far as airplanes, no plans on retiring all of the Bra's, and I think we get another 28-30 rj's this year with 24 more conditional next year. The best place to see this info is on skywest.com, the company website has a delivery schedule and retirement schedule and route map. The denver flying by mesa...so far replaces the Do328 flying by AWAC, and a bunch of newhires are going to DEN in the BRa, so it doesn't look like we're losing too much of that flying. But the United situation will dictate alot of what goes on, but things seem pretty positive out here that there are a couple of different contingency planes...sorry freudian slip, plans.

Mookie