Originally Posted by de727ups
"I belive they hire DCA PFT pilots"
With all due respect, and I'm no fan of DCA, but it's not PFT. If they stay long enough to get the guaranteed interview, they have over Mesa street mins. As far as I can tell, Skywest isn't a big player in the DCA guaranteed interview scam.
If you are speaking of 250 hour pilots, you may be thinking of Flight Safety Academy direct track. Most of those guys go to ASA. They don't meet Skywest mins. As an aside, Skywest won't hire guys with "timebuilding" multi-time unless they have "good" PIC time to meet the mins. This is what I've been told directly from a line pilot who does interviews at Skywest.
DCA does require some CFI work to qualify for the interview, which is good. But the times are actually below Mesa street mins, 700 DCA vs. 1000 Mesa. And Mesa normally doesn't hire off the street unless you have ATP times.
SKW does hire a few low time DCA types, but I suspect they only do it because it's a required part of the package deal with Delta. I applaud SKW for holding the line on their standards, as much as they can. Mesa also has to take some DCA folks now that they do Delta.