Radar , 06-01-2007 07:26 AM
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Skyway's 1900 upgrade would be almost immediate. You'll learn to fly as there is no autopilot, but the upgrade is a lot of responsibility with such little airline experience. Understand that if you don't read a NOTAM correctly out of a twelve page WX packet during a ten minute turn and launch to a closed airport you might take a serious set back in your career trying to fast track yourself to 1000 hours PIC. The Dornier 328JET is fun to fly. The pay is bad, close to if not the industry's worst. However, probably quite livable if you are in MKE and can live mostly free. There is little or no time on reserve right now for new hires. Now the bad... there is a reasonably good chance (read certain) that you will be furloughed when the Beech leaves. The latest word is it leaves in January. That means the upgrade is gone too, you don't have a 1000 hours and you get recalled to sit reserve as a 328 FO. Staffing should then come down to about 150 pilots, including both Capt. and FO positions to staff the 12 Dorniers. That estimate is being generous I think. If you want to end up at Skywest, do not go to Skyway as there is undoubtedly some badness going on in the way of an arrangement to not hire Skyway pilots at Skywest due to the new Skywest contract. (Good pilots with excellent experience are not getting hired even though Skywest can't staff in MKE.) What else? The company is imploding, schedules are terrible, people are leaving in droves, there is a merger with Airtran that is most certainly going to happen which could leave you in the street or flying a 717, if no merger happens perhaps Skywest does all the Skyway flying, the DO was retired (fired) because of the staffing issues, fleet manager and flight standards Asst. Chiefs left suddenly for Jet Blue, most of the training department has left for Midwest or Jetblue so expect a new instructor to get you through training, Midwest has put a hiring freeze on the pilot group to prevent attrition. Moral is depressingly low. Skyway is a gamble to say the least. Perhaps you should look up "Skywayed" in the urban dictionary to get a true feel for the company. Use it in the sentence, "You might get Skywayed along with the rest of a good pilot group."
Mesaba appears to have the full support of NW. Saab upgrades seem to be running 6mo - 18 mo depending upon how soon you get on. You can still make it in on the first half of the expansion which I think is probably wise if you want to have a decent quality of life and forward career movement in a timely manner. The company is a class act; I guess they finally did replace the carpet over at the Skyway HQ. But, Mesaba's HQ is truly a state of the art operation. Better attitude, better managed, some 18 CRJ200s coming from Pinnacle, 36 CRJ900s. Lots of growth and a quality training department. Minneapolis tends to be a senior base. However, DTW and Memphis are relatively easy commutes from MKE as well.
Pinnacle. Really? There are some really good people working there, but that is the case every where. No offense, but really?