Exactly. And even united doesn't hire many skywesters since Chip asked them to meter the numbers to protect the feed. The numbers from Skywest is so low they are barely making a dint. They take so many more from Xjet overall.

I asked this exact question when I was looking. SAP is nice just know depending on the base it could be 10 months or more before you get it. Plus when you upgrade to Captain it’s another long wait. Recruiters telling guys they get it right out of training are capitalizing on the very small percentage of guys whom do. Skywest has much better reserve rules. I’m at PSA. I’m happy but there are definitely differences. If I was you I would take a hard look at where you want to live and make that the deciding factor. Both companies are going to get you to the majors. Routes are definitely better on the skywest side and you have more options in terms of flying.


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Our routes do get kinda boring. I do wish we had mountain flying and/or more western flying.

I two legged to DAY for SAP until
I thought I could hold it in CLT. We stagnated a bit for a month so I got stuck with a BU for two more months in CLT.

We are still growing and adding routes. But we don’t do the whole lower 48 like SkyWest basiclly does. I would expect to see some nice longer routes in/out of PHL in 2018. And as far as boring, I’ve flown out west a bunch and here on the east coast a lot. My last trip took me from CLT to DCA, PHL, and ORD in 4 days. You have to be on your toes for east coast flying in and out of the busy hubs and in and out of the convoluted airspace all day.

Reserve rules are going to be improving here very soon. We begin negotiating next month and I would expect to see some big improvement very quickly to keep up with the new industry standard.

Hahaha

Oh I think I found the expanding PSA CRJ route map you speak of.
Congrats on making it to ORD.

Huh? That’s all pretty much SkyWest flying once the remaining 700s from Envoy are transferred. I wouldn’t mind some more ORD flying though. Heading west here and there wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Isn't this the greatest mystery, where will the "new" airplanes fly to?

It's not like we can keep adding MOB turns from CLT.
It appears some of the flying is ending up in PHL.
Have we really added that much ORD flying?

Meh, guess it doesn't really matter. I'll fly where I'm asked to.

Great read I have interviews coming up with both and keep asking myself this same question. They both seem like a good choice.

The question I keep asking myself is which one will be better for the future if something happens to the economy? Not sure if any of us can answer that question right now.

Well as far as, “Which one will be better for the future if something happens to the economy?”... Who knows? American has invested tens of millions into PSA and the other wholly-owned regionals. If the economy takes a hit the whole industry will take a hit. Even the legacies to some extent.

The saving grace for us regional pilots is that even if the economy takes a hit or we run over some sort of national “speed bump”, the amount of looming retirements at the legacies will still generate plenty of movement. American Airlines especially has the most retirements. The thing with the flow agreements is that if American has a new hire class (which they will even in an economic downturn to account for the massive wave of increasing retirements year over year) then contractually the wholly-owned regionals will be sending pilots to those classes. SkyWest and the other contract regionals not so much. Put simply, American can reduce the number of military and off the street hires in its new hire classes, but it isn’t nearly as easy to reduce the contractual number the WOs send per class/month.

Looking in the near term PSA offers more money, a lot of movement up the seniority list from flows leaving off the top of the list and attrition to other airlines, and growth. And I think that the SAP that PSA pilots enjoy is a huge enhancer to quality of life. Even if we go from our current line-bidding system to PBS, we will still have a SAP. It is huge for your quality of life. And with the backing of a legacy airline, PSA and the other WOs are set to stay competitive in this ever-changing market. To me, without knowing where you live/want to live, the choice is clear. And if not PSA then Endeavor, Piedmont, or Envoy are great options.