I interviewed last month and was offered the choice of March 3rd Bro, or Mar 10th jet. I took the jet on the 10th. I received my fedex'd offer of employment, yet there was no class date indicated--my Mar 10th class date offer and acceptance was all verbal. Are you saying that there will be the Feb 18th jet class and then no more? I hope not.

I'm pretty sure that's the case...sorry man. Hope you can swim

The lack of reserves in MKE is probably because there will be a large increase in lines due to the flying that MIDWEST DECIDED to have us fly instead of Skyway.

As far as FO's go, ORD has 229, with 174 lines, so we are REAL fat on FO's. From what I've heard, the Captain side is similar.

Makes SkedPlus+ work like a charm!!! Bye bye OMA turns with 515 shows!!!

Glad I left ORD to be more senior in MKE...

Transferring to MKE for a few months for a better commute, but I'll miss the west coast trips and EUG/SFO overnights. The scenery sucks on the midwest express side.

JP would be a good guess but I don't have quite as big a role as he has. I know who you are talking about. :D

hmmm justtt telllll :) How long have you been in the training dept?

Long enough to know not to say who I am on a forum. ;)

HAHA right on man...I'm still sticking with my first guess

This is all classes as of right now.

hrmm... well maybe i'll just stick it out on the bro and go for the upgrade later on down the road.

Yeah, my thoughts too. While it's tough to see the practicality in it from a financial standpoint, a little part of me REALLY wants that EMB-120 type rating. Something to show the grandkids, you know?

OK if it ain't JP and you're not one of the C's then I got no clue. Those are the only 3 that I am aware of that I know in the training dept. How many posts do I have to have before you can enlighten me?

Great! More commuting for me I guess! I still find it hard to believe we are fat on pilots here. I know we are in some bases on the jet but not here on the BRO. I have been on the phone with crew support all day.....helping me with my commute to work (World Ag Expo in FAT....Stay away from here-flight loads are ridiculous!) and they told me they had to get me to FAT because they have NO reserves and they were still scrambling to fill other trips.

So why is Skywest still interviewing? How long are they going to run classes in the immediate future?

I'm kind of curious as to what's going on myself. I just interviewed last week and just got my offer letter and crj study packet. Of course no class date but it seems pretty weird that they would send this stuff out if they have no intention of employing me until middle of summer.

Did they mention or offer any class dates to you or the group at the interview?

I was thinking the same thing. Weird.

The deal with me might muddy the waters a little bit. Currently I'm Skyway and was given the option of either taking an immediate class or waiting until we cease operations in early April.

Still I have a hard time believing that there won't be anything before or after that though. Especially since SkyWest still has career fairs and such scheduled. I mean the company has to invest money to have these fairs and interview people. Also, they'd be naive to think someone is going to wait around 5 months for a job.

According to the lady that awards the classes, no RJ upgrade classes until June 30.

I waited (or waded if you will) a couple of months before I got a class date.

No classes period until June 30th. I heard yesterday that we might not hold a new hire class until Sept unless something changes.

man this sucks

wavit, who are you ? send me an email at swol

SKW has a history of doing this. Don’t forget that they had a hiring freeze that lasted from Fall 05 through late Spring 07 which resulted in them hiring 750 pilots the next year and 1100 in 18 months. When times look like they might get tough they freeze (DAL/NWA merger, possible UAL/CAL merger, low attrition and no growth other than Midwest flying), this is so that can maintain their perfect record of no furloughs (they're not the kind of airline that continues to hire right up to the day they furlough. errrrrrrrr TSA) and ensure their expenses stay low (minimal reserves sitting around). When hiring does start back up, look for them to go strong seeing they’ll be back to being extremely short staffed again.

Sucks because I was going to be in either the Apr or May upgrade class. Looks like I’ll just have to stick with my 17-18 days off, 90+ hrs of credit and home everyday with only 2 or 3 overnights per month until late summer or early fall. Damn, life sux! (note sarcasm)

Looks like more red arrows on SkedPlus+. Here in ATL the only time we don’t see red arrows are on days that have already passed. LOL!

I guess this is the first time for me to go "swimming" in a hiring pool. Since my interview on the 5th and got the conditional hiring, how do you know say your status, such as did all the background stuff go thru? Do you email the recruiting people occasionally for any updates? or is it just sit and wait? Either way just curious

Hang in there for now. The pool is always frustrating but I honestly don't think you will be swimming for as long as we think right now. I really do think they are being conservative right now.

FWIW, I talked to someone in HR recently, and they said that my class size has changed, and as of right now, there would be no Mar. 10 CRJ class. When I asked when would I be notified further (good or bad), they said they would notify me by Mar. 1. We'll see......

Anyone else have any other HR-provided info?

I heard this same news from a few other guys. It seems like they had deep pilot reserves that were not being utilized. Can you imagine being 40 deep as a reserve pilot?

I will talk to my friend who is in the feb ground class and see if he has any other info to offer.

If you had the choice to instruct longer to pay the bills and hold out for skywest till summer or jump on another regional that would require a move and east coast flying, what would you suggest? I have always wanted to work for skw but I am not sure it is worth it with a hiring slow and slower upgrade times now.

Dude(or Dudette), as I'm sure you know, it's always a gamble with your aviation career progression decisions. It's so hard to say what to do. If you are single, not a lot of friends/family where you live, no pets, etc. then it might be an option for you to pursue that east coast option.

On the other hand, If I were you, I would stay put and wait out the Skywest scenario. IMO, the following are important:

-I assume you have already been offered employment at Skywest--it's not if, but when you will start.

-Though I am a little frustrated with the lack of communication related to the current situation, Skywest is a very successful airline, seems to be shrewdly operated, and it seems the majority of the pilot group is not unhappy. No history of furloughs is cool.

-Moving sucks + east coast flying sucks. Not that you'll totally avoid the east flying at SKYW.

-you have always wanted to work for SKYW--That's important.

-maybe I'm in denial, but I dont think the wait will be that long.

Sleestak

Thanks for the ideas sleestak. I would like to talk to you further about this if you don't mind shooting me a quick e-mail, there is no ability to private message on my account. I know a few people at skw and we might be able to help eachother out AirTahoe at comcast .net

...sent you an email a few days ago....

sleestak

Good advice.

The lack of communication does suck. What is the deal with the Skyway guys that were hired? They are given a hire date when the accept employment, not when they start class, CORRECT???

This is what I heard out of the training dept the other day. This was to give them the higher seniority numbers in there class.

no offense to skyway guys, but SAPA should grieve that on behalf of the pilot group for obvious reasons.

As a current pilot, I have no problem with the deal HR has with Skyway.

yeah it hardly affects anyone...I think it's not a bad deal

SAPA supports the hire dates, and supports the pilots at Skyway who have lost their jobs.

With any luck, these folks will be doing exactly the same flying, and living at the same base in MKE. Just a different company and plane.

They will still start at $22, like anybody else, however.

yeah i wonder how long it will take though since the march 10th class is no longer...that was going to be mostly skyway guys

Their Skyways date or hire is being used to SkyWest??