flyingice

SkyWest doesn't have airplanes sitting around to immediately cover the loss of QX flying. No way. Nor with spare pilots. You MAY have some good coverage on the 175 side of SkyWest, but to immediately staff an extra ten airframes or more? I can't buy that. No one has that level of slack in their operation.

You can say SkyWest has all these orders and options, but the options mean nothing until the money is put up. I'm not sure how many of you are finance types, but SkyWest is leveraged beyond the gills. Their levered free cash flow is negative, yes negative, 470 million dollars. So can they pay for what they have ordered? Maybe. For the options, no way. So someone has to pony up the money here for the extra Alaska airframes, and SkyWest can't afford it.

That leaves the Alaska Air Group board financing this to the tune of a one billion dollars. They may stick the planes at SkyWest, but the moment that happens, Horizon operationally is toast, and SkyWest needs three months to get people through training. Can Alaska afford three months of sucking it operationally until SkyWest pulls through? I wouldn't risk my job or my shareholders on it.

Packrat

Of course the promise of an Alaska job will keep those QX "juvenile delinquents" (as George Bagley described you) from leaving for other opportunities.

nederlander

Compass has been approached by Alaska about adding additional 175 flying in Alaska paint. Alaska can afford to and likely will shrink QX as there are cheaper and more readily available options. Easy conservative decision for a very reactive company.

pete2800

Hey! I resemble that remark!

flyingice

I wear that title with a badge of honor.

Steve400

From the CPO crf today:

"After several bids with little to no upgrades we are now on the brink of potentially many upgrades over the next several bids. Please update your permanent bid to reflect your current preferences."

Anyone have any idea how many 'potentially many' upgrades will be? Didnt see anything on the training plan

SIUav8er

No, I hope to be at a mainline before it comes to that... But if I loose my job here before I get hired somewhere, then so be it.

Im just saying, the jets are going to be operated by the cheapest, most efficient way possible. And the QX pilots taking a few concessions is NOT going to be the deciding factor. But thats fine, you vote YES for PBS and all the other BS they want to shove our way....

pete2800

I saw that too. Good news for me, although it's going to take a while before people get through training and start bidding...

As far as numbers go, who knows. "Many" by our standards is anything more than one. Haha.

OnMyWay

Was this sent through Outlook? Mine must have got lost in the mail..

vrefcoffee

FDDS Crew Read File