SKW Upgrade Classes, back to back awards?
 

SKW pilots...................

Anyone else interested in why SKW awarded the February 25th upgrade class and once it was complete, without any hesitation, starting awarding the March 17th? Is it due to the increase in Midwest flying schedule to start in March and now they’re scrambling to fill CA & FO positions? Seeing their current CA & FO reserves will just cover the addition flying leaving SKW thin on reserves company wide.

Insight anyone…………………and please don’t turn this into a SKW bash fest. I as well as most am tired of the same run around.

Thank you all!

what does the put the must junior rj captain at? are my former fellow 29100 series pilots upgraded yet?

I thought I saw a 31xxx get awarded EM2 CA.

No not yet on the RJ but the EMB yes. All the Feb 25th pilots who were awarded upgraded haven't accepted yet but of the ones who have, the most junior award has a Jan 05 date. I expect the Mar 17 class to fall to early summer of 05 new hires and since SKW started a hiring freeze that lasted from late fall 05 through Apr 06 class I'm expecting the Mar 31st class to be late summer 05 to spring 06 hires with the later date getting even more junior.

This is assuming that most will accept MKE for their upgrade. I’d expect the upgrades to go even more junior than what I listed due to the fact that most what to stay out west.

Yes, but I'm talking about the RJ. The 31xxx was an Apr 07 hire with EMB upgrades around 9-12 months and they'll stay there for quite some time.

Most junior RJ upgrade was a 275xx which was a July '06 hire. That was back in July '07.

How many pilots are needed to staff the Midwest additional flying? Did you base that on how many Skyway pilots were released? What's your best guess on reserves company wide right now? I don't have a clue.

I found the back-to-back bid curious as well. But, the Feb class sure didn't have many upgrades in it if they're "scrambling."

P.S. Does anyone know why it takes so long to award that stuff? It seems to take longer than a PBS run. Seems like it should be a quick Dbase query to me.

We have 76 CA’s in MKE to staff 14 a/c (the 1 spare doesn’t count, it’s a spare). If you use the same ratio of 5.3 per for the 10 RJ’s Midwest just picked up the options on then that 53+ upgrades. I was told by KA that we had almost 500 reserve line in Feb which is off peak and more than 37% of those reserve lines turned into soft lines to cover open time, vacations, etc. That only leaves around 315 reserve CA, then subtract the 53+ for Midwest and you end up with 262 reservist if there are no other upgrades. Remember that this is off peak and by the time peak season gets here 262 pilots WILL NOT be enough to cover the flying. They need to start running classes now so that when peak season hits they will have adequate staffing. Also, don't forget about our attrition rate average of 18 CA's per month that we're losing.

ps. These are very rough numbers.

Before they can award CA's positions they must award FO, CA and FA transfers. After that the system looks at the openings and awards the vacancies.

what are the mimimuns there at skywest?