de727ups

ASA hires the bulk of ab initio/direct track guys from FSA. Now that ASA got bought out by Skywest, any thoughts on Skywest joining the program, too? Skywest dumping the program? Has FSA been knockin' at your door?

rickair7777

SkyWest has historically been very opposed to low-time pilots. They are very conservative. Delta may require them to hire a VERY small number of DCA folks. I would assume that Skywest policy will prevail at ASA eventually...

Comair Delta Jr

C'omon, Skywest would put a monkey with a stick in the right seat (to keep the captain awake) , if they thought the FAA would buy off on it.

rickair7777

SkyWest??? They mostly hire ex-airline guys with CRJ time, and few flight instructors for the EMB...

Going2Baja

I bet they turned you down.....What a tool!!! Kook.

Baja.

JustAMushroom

SkyWest will probably not accept pilots from that program. They have not hired below their stated minimums in the past even when finding qualified pilots was difficult.

I suspect they will allow ASA practices to remain as-is for a some time.

That Comair guy doesn't know what he's talking about and jerks like that should keep to themselves.

AirWillie

Yea if you read their inflight magazine, there is a page where they say that they have hire very experienced pilots with thousands of hours of flight experience. It's all BS. Thier just a regional airline. So what if pilots there get somewhat better schedules and attention then other reginoals, their pay is still ****ty. I don't see what all the fuss is about and why they have to be so conservative when hiring pilots.

SkyWestPilot

uh... to be safe?

rickair7777

I grew up in a small town in the intermountain west. SKW was THE airline in that neck of the woods. Their corporate culture comes from operating metro-liners in winter weather in the rockies...they learned the hard way...

The radar can keep you out of thunder-bumpers in florida, but not out of severe icing on a Utah airway with a 16,000 MEA...

sarcasticspasti

Let's face it, Skywest is considered one of the best. Therefore, their pile of applications is tall and they can afford to pick and choose. ASA's near term future is still cloudy. Nobody knows how the buyout will affect the pilot group. And until they do, fewer people are going to be sending them applications and they are going to go with lower minimums.

That being said, all 121 carriers have stringent training programs and none of them are afraid of washing out people who can't cut it. Even with all of the low time pilots getting hired over the last ten years and ab-initio programs having been standard in Europe for even longer, the US and European safety rates are still remarkable. The regionals are as safe or safer than the majors since the application of 121 standards across the board, low time pilots or not. It's the training and the professional attitudes throughout the pilot group that make it safe, not what kind of airplane you flew or for how long before you got there.