What is upgrade time and QOL like for new hires at SKYW? I've got 2300TT and didn't know if they would upgrade at 500TT in type or how it worked. One of the recruiters told me I should expect 8 months, but I've learned from the past to never trust anyone with "recruiter" in their job title.

Best Regards

To upgrade at SKW you have to have 2500 hours, 1000 hours "crew time", and the seniority to hold the position. There will be many who are senior to you who will have to fly longer to get to the 2500 hour mark and be blocked until then.

What defines "crew time"? Does it have to be flight time in an a/c requiring two pilots, or does safety pilot/time building count?

no its time in an actual crew airplane. CRJ, Lear, G5, 737, etc is crew time. safety pilot is not.

i bet they will waive that stuff based on merit if you get really good scores and your captains give you good write ups. but thats just me betting

My guess is that the upgrades will start to trend a little longer than they were earlier this year. The last couple RJ class awards had captain going more senior than those earlier this spring. Last aircraft to be delivered in August or so, and no others on the horizon (could always change). Guys that were hired a year or two ago that didn't meet the upgrade requirements now do. Additionally we parked a couple of EMBs.

They've basically awarded all the captain slots for the growth aircraft, so any new awards are for attrition. On the captain side this maybe running 10-20 a month. 2690 pilots on the list now.

captain attrition should continue, when united starts hiring youll see more movement too. for some strange reason theres quite a few skw captains that i ran into in chicago that are specifically holding out for united, maybe because they live at united bases or something.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Are you saying a new hire with 2500 TT AND ATP certificate would have to fly right seat until all the low time guys upgrade just because of date of hire?

upgrades would still be in seniority order. but if the people senior to you arent eligible due to not enought TT, they continue down the list in seniority order until they fill that vacancy.

bypassing guys for upgrade because of low TT is not the case right now anyway at skywest, theyre not necessarily having that problem just yet but who knows maybe in the future?

and on a side note,,, good luck to the guy who has the time when he gets hired and becomes a captain in 6 months. you will be on reserve for several years.

yea that would suck, to see every captain upgrade after you be senior to you for a long long time