Oooh sooo scarrrry.

Several people in my class group bailed right after training, not to mention half the upgrade classes finish with pilots never flying an hour of PIC because they have job offers as soon as they updated their apps.

SkyWest could make new hires sign a contract like some other regionals, but they don’t. There is no obligation to stay here and no list to be scared of.

It was a joke.

I agree with being your own shareholder, but one should consider that sometimes economic interests are secondary to integrity, reputation and safety (in fact, maybe always, secondary). If one only considers one's own economic interests doesn't that lead to a whole host of abusive practices such as the ones you are describing and far, far worse as we've seen historically? It consistently amazes me that a well-educated, highly skilled workforce can be so underserved for so long as it is for regional airline pilots. Of course, that is what has led to where we are today. But would you not agree that it has now come back to bite the airlines in the butt and had they treated their employees with more integrity and respect and compensated them fairly all along we wouldn't be here? So, how do you want to run your own business, like theirs? Or do you run your own business better?

Run my own business ethically and contractually correctly to the letter. However, just as the late great Ray Liotta, as Henry Hill, in the classic film Goodfella’s said, “f@$! You, Pay me!”

Anyone know if there is a process to resign or if we just send a letter to our chief and say so long

There is a “how to quit” guide on the sapa website.

I’d venture to guess that’s the most-used sapa resource at the moment!

Official SAPA Guide To Quitting SkyWest

1. Look at resignation email
2. Delete it
3. Don't quit

Well, the fact of the matter is that anyone who leaves prior to having 1000 TPIC has failed to allow the company to “recoup their investment” in you.

What really IS their investment? It’s not just the ATP cost.
Nor is it just the type rating. Every single hour of SIC time you get depends on the company putting a CA in the left seat next to you and right now most regionals are CA limited. THAT’s what the company REALLY wants (and in fact NEEDS) since that is currently the most limiting factor in their operation and why they are paying high prices for DECs, mandating upgrades for eligible FOs, and going into the 135 business.

So if you are really talking ethical payback, THAT’S how far you need to go.

But you aren’t going to do that, nor am I blaming you or anyone else for that. Before the majors were hiring like they are today (and before the FAA mandated rest times) regional managements worked their crews like a rented mule and paid them as little as they could get away with - which was very little indeed.

Like the others, Skywest accumulated a huge karma debt at that time. Cr@p on them all you want with a totally clear conscience.

They have it coming.

If everyone stayed until at least 1000 TPIC then we wouldn’t have enough left seat hours for lifers.

I think the lifers are going to age out of the pilot group. Few of them actually WANTED to be lifers, simply getting trapped in the regionals by the lost decade and now so senior it actually doesn’t make sense either economically or QOL for them to start over again as the plug FO somewhere else. But when you have 50 year old CAs at the second tier (SWA, JetBlue, Alaska, Spirit, Frontier, etc) jumping to the Big Three, I can’t imagine anybody under that age is now ASPIRING to be a regional lifer, meaning the regional CA crunch will only worsen over time.