Will SKW be able to staff these additional aircraft? At 10 crews/plane that will require an additonal 250 or so people.

 

You don’t think management thought about this before agreeing to it?

 

We are running two classes of 40 a month for the 175. We are over 5400 pilots now. I don’t see an issue in that department.

 

We've been growing by that about every six months.

 

I don't know any airline that staffs 10 crews per plane, unless my math is horribly wrong; or are you including FA's too? Pilots wise, I'd say most regionals are around the 5-6 per airplane.

And no, OO is not short-staffed. You can't even get a class date within 6 months at the moment. And that is running 100+ pilots through per month.

 

the bottom 10% of DL, UA and AA will be looking to come back once the downturn accelerates and airline travel tanks with the virus spread. That will fix the problem for a few years

 

My Analysis:
10 crews per plane has always worked with my math with lots of airlines unless you are talking mostly international where they get more hours/day/plane average. Southwest is at 10/plane. Skywest has 492 planes. Currently 5400 pilots with about 300 still in training, maybe 400. that's about 10.1.

Skywest won't have problems attracting captains. They give 1 for 1 pay credit up to 10 years. So an 8 year TSA captain can go to Skywest, upgrade after 6 months, and be on 9th year captain pay. And, unlike at Gojet where you stay at 9th year until you are at Gojet for 9 years, at Skywest you move up each year, 9th year captain pay, 10th etc.

If a TSA pilot goest to GJ and gets an 80k bonus, he will probably make 160k with 80k of flying pay (85/hour). While at Skywest he would only get a 7500 bonus, but at 96 per hour and 115 hours of credit per month giving him 132480 for flying for a total of $139,980. Down 20 at skywest. But the next year he will go to 99/hour for an income of 136660 v. 87700 at Gojet. Suddenly he is up 28940 at Skywest over Gojet. Third year he will be up about 80k compared to 3 years flying at Gojet. I'm very skeptical that Gojet will be around in 3 or 4 years too.

 

My Analysis:
10 crews per plane has always worked with my math with lots of airlines unless you are talking mostly international where they get more hours/day/plane average. Southwest is at 10/plane. Skywest has 492 planes. Currently 5400 pilots with about 300 still in training, maybe 400. that's about 10.1.

Skywest won't have problems attracting captains. They give 1 for 1 pay credit up to 10 years. So an 8 year TSA captain can go to Skywest, upgrade after 6 months, and be on 9th year captain pay. And, unlike at Gojet where you stay at 9th year until you are at Gojet for 9 years, at Skywest you move up each year, 9th year captain pay, 10th etc.

If a TSA pilot goest to GJ and gets an 80k bonus, he will probably make 160k with 80k of flying pay (85/hour). While at Skywest he would only get a 7500 bonus, but at 96 per hour and 115 hours of credit per month giving him 132480 for flying for a total of $139,980. Down 20 at skywest. But the next year he will go to 99/hour for an income of 136660 v. 87700 at Gojet. Suddenly he is up 28940 at Skywest over Gojet. Third year he will be up about 80k compared to 3 years flying at Gojet. I'm very skeptical that Gojet will be around in 3 or 4 years too.

 

I think the problem is people have a different definition of a crew. A crew is 2 pilots. A CA and FO. 10 pilots per aircraft is 5 crews. Perhaps that will clear up some of the confusion.

 

OO would be at 9 175 pilots per 175 (including pilots in training) if all 50 odd 175s showed up tomorrow.
It's going to be fine