Let me clarify. Skywest has fired more pilots in the last two years than all other Alpa regional carriers combined. Hey don't take my word for it. Email Russ J, the SAPA rep in charge of disciplinary action at Skywest. He has the facts and the statistics. This is not made up and there is no reason to speculate. Just ask him. http://www.sapapilot.org/

 

I'm neither a koolaid drinker nor a sapa supporter. I have not seen or heard any evidence or rumors along the lines of unusually large numbers of terminations. I fly the line, and these sorts of things do not stay secret...as any real airline pilot would know

You have leveled what amounts to a serious allegation during a time when we have a very serious decision to make. You're going to tell me that this sort of thing has been going on for the last two years and that a line pilot who has lots of friends at the company hasn't heard a word about it??? Why hasn't alpa published this stuff? I get all of their literature...hell, I flew with an OC guy this month!

I'm calling you out...lets see the documentation. If you don't have any, you're full of BS.

 

I'm calling bullchips on that one. I know of several off the top of my head that were sent packing from the likes of TSA and Mesa. Again, to reiterate, if somebody is fired from SKW, it is most probable that they completely earned it...and were still given a second-chance to clean up.

 

You can come on these forums and call BS or you could simply email your SAPA rep. Russ J. He would be happy to discuss the unusually large number of terminations at Skywest. Ask him to email a copy of the judges ruling in the Don Douglas trial...it appears that it wasn't most probable that he earned it.

 

I will email my SAPA rep. And I caution you on accepting the ruling of a single Judge as gospel, given that they are no less fallible than you or I.

 

True, but their words carry a lot more weight.

My opinion: I'm not religious so the gospel's light as a feather.

 

Yeah...go ahead....trust Klen B. In his letter he said that Don was found guilty by his peers during a review board hearing. Review boards at Skywest consist of two pilot representatives, two management representatives and one HR representative (ask K Jasmine from the HR dept. why they don't select pilots randomly for the review board process). The two pilot reps. are picked by Mike E. from a fraction of the SAPA representatives. It's skewed from the start. Anyhow, I was at Don's trial...how about you?

 

The ALPA folks seem to be saying that all 30 that were terminated were all unfairly done so. With how high attrition has been, doesn't seem odd that a company would be firing people left and right when they can't even fill classes? The training department can't even keep up as it is. Are a majority of these on probation or some during some aspect of training? Hiring a fair number of low-time CFI's straight into a RJ might have something to do with that. If you say it's because they were all ALPA supporters, there's plenty more left and many who have been very vocal for many years. Why haven't they been fired?

That being said, that whole Don Douglas deal has probably gotten more people off the fence or made anti-union people change their tune. TF's actions have probably done more damage to their anti-union movement than any other event in the past 35 years.

 

From what I read 19 of the 30 or so were on probation.

In SLC I've heard about several others in the last couple years that were fired, 2-3 for drugs/alcohol, one for sexual harrasment, and one for using the company email system to collect a personnel debt from a FA.

 

Just talked to Russ yesterday, and I'll see him again at the SAPA meeting in San Diego on both Mon and Tues.

There is a bit of skewing of the numbers. Apparently, SkyWest doesn't let folks resign if they intend to fire them (iow, it goes on your "record" as a firing for other airlines to see).

Many, if not most, of the other carriers low numbers are typically because they'll allow those same folks to resign that SkyWest would have fired. And again, 19 were probationers.... no union will have any impact on them. And I personally think that PROVEN drug / alcohol issues should be fired... eventually. Everybody should get at least one chance to fix it (say, time on the beach to go to rehab, etc).

Like most stuff, there's always another side of the story. And, I'm not sure if you mentioned this other side of the story, but Russ is also a strong ALPA supporter (in addition to SAPA rep).