Training issues at SKW
Looking to find out if anyone out there has had issues with the training procedures at SkyWest.
We had 7 hirees (thus far) resign and/or fail the November class. It was very clear that the company didn’t care to put forth any effort to assist those who were having difficulties, and left much to be handled by whichever students were willing to head-up study groups (in our class’ case, there were none). The company loves to pledge assistance, but the “help” they offered us was the advice “You either get it, or you get out.”
To all potential people looking to sign on with SKW, there are some stringent rules that the company adheres to, and will absolutely not deviate from:
“Three strikes - you’re out” policy, even if you are struggling and have asked for help. (in my case, my sim partner resigned, and I was not given a replacement to work with)
SKW considers “failure” to be anything below 80% (even on internal tests and exams), and accumulating 3 failures throughout the training program (even on small company tests) results in a termination on the pilot’s PRIA report.
Struggling during FTD / Sim means that they will intentionally limit the amount of help they will offer. You’re allotted exactly 10 hours of extra instruction, and to exceed this will result in a termination (again, on the PRIA report).
I feel very strongly after going through the SKW groundschool that the training department is run on fear. Anyone going into SKW should be aware of these policies and take a long, hard look at which airline they’re choosing. These are things I wish I would’ve known. SKW prides itself on having a very positive, caring culture for its employees, but their actions do not foster this kind of environment. Instead, they seem to pride themselves on the number of pilots who don’t make it through the program.