I'm just curious on where you are getting your info about Skyway and Midwest. Let me guess through someone who knows someone else. How about this the only company that is still bidding on Skyway's flying is Air Wisconsin, how do I know this, I have to hear about it everyday in Skyway Ops room cause some of the other pilots are worried about their jobs. I'm guessing the rumor started about Big Sky because someone will have to fly the EAS routes, as of now we are going to continue to fly those until we find a replacement by law. Mostly likely the replacement will be a small local company, since Lakes, Big Sky, Mesa and who ever else has 1900's won't want to come to Wisconsin to fly to 3 destinations (IWD, ESC, MBL). The cost wouldn't make sense and nothing bigger than 19 seats can go into Ironwood or Manistee, for two reasons. One, an CRJ is just to big even our 328's would have a problem and two there isn't any fire or rescue services. So coming from a Midwest meeting last week the only company left is Air Wisconsin, the plan is to get 5 planes in Milwaukee and 10-15 in Kansas City to start a second hub. As of now nothing is final and we are currently adding 2 more 328s to the fleet, and out of our DO's mouth, we are still looking at more.

 

Lemme get this straight...Midwest management told your pilot group that AWAC was the only company still in the running for 15-20 planes worth of 50 seat flying?

Or is that just more crewroom gospel?

 

The only three companies that were left as of last week was Air Willy, EJ and the rumor on the third was Pinnacle. Now that EJ has offically lost the bid, that would leave it to Willy and one other. Only the final three found out the airports that the deal was to serve. Now it is just a waiting game to see what happens.

 

Maybe now that Midwest is hiring there may be some movement at Skyway? From what I've been told staffing is at a minimum already and if Skyway loses too many more pilots that they may have to bring on some new people to fill the gaps.

 

no, the word came down from up top, we will not be hiring. if we have to beech captains who are dull seat qualed will fly right seat to cover what we need. with the beechs going away we need to be down to 130-140 pilots, unless we get more than 2 328s then we will probably hire.

 

i've got good news for those interested in skyway, managment finally realized that we are way to short on pilots and with so many leaving we have to hire. the word is two classes of 12 in the near future, i cant give to many details because thats all they told us. i can say that it will be for the beech since thats where we are really hurting and also because most guys who are in the beech are leaving for the jet when they can since no one will probably upgrade anymore. if i find out more i'll post it.

 

Ya except for one slight problem...... Last I remember a Mesaba guy told me that in their contract is a scope clause that stated Big Sky will not operate anything larger than 19 seats.... Assuming that this is true that would mean that in order for Big Sky to do this flying either Mesaba would have to liquidate or the pilots would have to willingly give up that scope clause. I will say that this might have been a possibility a few weeks ago before the judge undid the tossing of the contracts.....

As for the two CRJ's yes they are NWA's... and one of them is already sitting on the north end of KIAD up by cargo; waiting to start proving runs for Compass....

 

AWAC was also bidding for the RJ flying under Midwest. I believe Chataqua was bidding also, but there was confusion on who was providing the airplanes. Kinda like the XJT deal. I'm going to bet they won't hire for a year or more. If all of the Beech guys are moving to the Dornier their attrition will probably drop... Just my thoughts

 

Hiring for the beech....? What happens to all these people when the last of the 1900s are gone? I hope Skyway isn't looking at hiring pilots for the short term and then putting them all on furlough.

 

i hope so to and that will all depend on people leaving, right now we a good 20-30 pilots short and more are leaving every day. we are short staffed on every aircraft and every seat. we have 10 or 12 leaving for midwest on oct. 9th and midwest just closed its window for another group of new hires, so we figure more will leave in that class also. there are also a few who had interviews at JB and southwest, what i've heard the JB guy got the job and the others are still waiting to hear from southwest.