Hello,

I'm new here on the forums and I've finally decided to join. If there's any SkyWest pilots out there, you guys can help the most with 2 questions I have.

1. With WN buying FL, what's OO going to do with the MKE ops because I can't see WN keeping it?

2. For the FL MKE ops, does OO use the hybrid livery a/c? I've never seen any painted in FL colors, so I imagine they're the hybrid.

 

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For FL ops, OO uses a Skywest "branded" livery. It doesn't say Air Tran anywhere on the aircraft, nor are there any Air Tran-like colors or insignias.

I don't know about the answer to your first question. I'll bet a lot of folks at Skywest are wondering the same thing.

 

Safe to assume that WN will not continue the codeshare as it stands now. However...WN has pretty much filled it's chosen market niche. Significant future growth will probably require that they branch out into new areas: international, hub-and-spoke, smaller aircraft for smaller markets (and maybe vice-versa).

The only economical way to service many podunk towns is through feed to a hub. SWA has shown extreme discipline and focus by sticking with the 737...and that has probably helped them tremendously. If they now need other types, outsourcing might make more sense for them than other majors (if their pilots will allow it).

So there's a slight possibility that the SKW airtran feed could grow into something much larger in the future. SWA and SKW were actually in serious negotiations about something like this back before the economy tanked in 2008, so it's not just pie-in-the-sky.

The AT flying was basically an experiment anyway...it's about 1% of SKW flying so if it goes away the only impact on crews will be that SKW will not be quite as short staffed during the holidays.

 

There is absolutely zero possibility that SWA will "outsource" flying to any regional including Skywest. Their scope clause is the most simple and powerful in the industry. SWA management may want to do it, but their pilots will never agree.

It essentially says, "we don't care what aircraft SWA management wants to fly, however, that flying will only be done by pilots on the SWA seniority list."

After the Airtran deal closes, if it does, SWA management has up to two years to eliminate the outsourced flying.

I know too many SWA pilots who say this particular contract item is absolutely NON-negotiable with SWA management. At least one major airline pilot group gets it.

 

It was about 85% of my schedule my last few months in ORD! (That's not a complaint either... I found it to be rather enjoyable flying.)


Thumbs up. Hopefully it will stay that way.

 

What's the world coming too? SWA needs to "branch out" to hub and spoke, different types of Aircraft and fly only to the major city airports???? I thought we've been told all along this was the problem with the legacies?
Or was it just the legacies high pay and actual company funded pensions that were the true problems???? Well now worry SWA, BK court took care of that!

 

I've been reading a lot of the comments. 1st off, WN will be going intl. Not abroad (trans atlantic, pacific), but they're going across the boarder into CUN and into some Carribiean markets given that the FL buyout goes through. WN will never operate a hub and spoke network. Even though a point-to-point operation costs more, however, it allows them to make more money. How they make more money typically has to deal with slot times. When I worked at DL, most of our flights were on the ground for almost an hour before they could depart again. This was because of the slot time that's available going in/out of that particular city. WN, will look at other alternatives. If they see another city that has potential for profit where they can get the plane back out in 25-30mins, they're going to take it. As far as different aircraft type, a 50 seat aircraft is harder to offset costs than a larger aircraft. This is why Independence Air failed because majority of their fleet was 50 seat aircraft and they had no other means of support to offset these costs, which is the benefit of having a larger aircraft. They are looking into the -800 model, which overall, will allow them to increase passenger capacity by 12 compared to the -700 without adding another FA. I know this is the same aircraft type, but different model.