Tumbleweeds

What a great reply. Thanks for taking the time to write this out. I hope I get to fly with guys like you soon.

N1CEandEZ

Did you forget OO has bases in ATL, DTW, and ORD? Minimal reserve time, lots of flying as an FO/CA, quick upgrade, travel benefits on all three carriers in some cases, and good compensation with profit sharing and performance bonuses. I’m not saying OO is the best choice for everyone but I certainly wouldn’t say “there isn’t a good argument to work for Skywest on the east coast”.

Cazadores

I didn't forget, but I know the differences.

SkyWest is a fine place to be as a pilot, but let's look at just a few things here.

Reserve rules: SkyWest is, well, lets call it what it is, abusive when it comes to particularly ready reserve assignments. Why? Because it can be. Ask an Endeavor pilot about ready reserve and he or she will describe an equitable policy with rules actually making a ready assignment desirable. Ask a Republic pilot, and you'll get an incredulous look, as my understanding is they dont even have ready reserve.

On the matter of pay, Endeavor has profit sharing and considerably higher pay rates, they also get paid when the door is closed and the brake drops, "latency" is an acars entry. Republic has some of the highest per diem in the regional sector, and an override for international flying, not to mention top pay well above that of SkyWest, particularly when also figuring in ATL and DTW are CRJ only, and both offer rapid advancement for the time being. I know Republic has a minimum of 150% on open time premium pay.

You mentioned travel benefits. Every Republic pilot, regardless of domicile, receives benefits on every partner airline. There is no domicile in the SkyWest system that offers this, and only a small handful that offer benefits on more than two. As you know, that means you can transfer from say MSP to DEN, lose your DL benefits, and be out the fee, even though you still work for the same company.

Endeavor, while limited to Delta benefits, gets priority above everyone except mainline on all jets except other partner employees on their aircraft-they go above us on Republic, they go above us on Delta, and so forth. It was great sitting in economy recently on my way back from BCN when a new hire Endeavor guy showed up to take my Delta1 seat last minute.

I could go on with commuter hotels, positive space commuter clauses, the list is long, and safe to say pretty much on every measurable criteria both Republic and Endeavor beat us. Besides, if your on the east coast Republic has like 12 bases all in the eastern timezone, no chance of your base shutting down and getting forced to commute to senior bases far from home and sitting ready reserve.

Anyway, there are a lot of great things about SkyWest, but my honest opinion and advice is, if you live east of the Rockies, you have a lot of great options to consider, and frankly I dont think we are competitive when taking in all of the quantitative factors, like work rules, pay, and benefits.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'd support and advise a person who wanted to live in Boise or Salt Lake to come here, it's been a great ride for me, but as I said, if you're planning to stay back east, I dont see it.

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Air Guitar

For the sake of transparency, I think this was important to mention.

Cazadores

Hey, look, that's the point. SkyWest has been great, but given the options, and the fight we fight for parity for even simple standard industry segment items, if you have a choice, why do it? You're basically paying a "west coast tax" when you dont have to as an east coaster. Anyway, have fun, fly jets, dont get fat on beer.

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Milksheikh

The points you made above for edv are relevant but here’s another perspective. At endeavor you’ll only have benefits on delta where for Dtw and atl at skywest you’ll get delta and united.

As for reserve, you won’t be on reserve for more than a month or 2 at skywest at atl or dtw after ioe so yeh we have crappy reserve rules but you’ll be off reserve much quicker at skywest.

as for upgrade it’s currently about a year 4 months for guys with no prior 121 time and I believe pushing 3 years for endeavor.

at the end of the day there are a lot of factors to consider wherever you go but looking specifically at atl or dtw I’d give the edge to skywest.

Cazadores

Why, exactly, with better work rules, higher pay and similar upgrade times, coupled with base commitment and protections, and better travel benefits, would you give an edge to SkyWest?

Yeah, good times and short reserve....Until we draw down ATL, like HOU and SEA and the guys who experienced the EMB120 nonsense in SFO...

And wait for those reserve times to increase, as we consolidate out west, and enjoy those reserve rules as a captain, again, in a base you commute to, without a commuter clause .

When you could be with an east coast company with one. With more money.....and better benefits.


East coast. Enjoy life, west coast, enjoy SkyWest. It's not a bad deal.


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Milksheikh

does edv have min daily guarantee? I honestly don’t know. Upgrade times are not comparable at all. literally twice as long at edv.

it’s all based on different peoples situations. If you want to upgrade quick build pic time, and be competitive for the majors sooner go to skywest. If you want a sure shot interview with delta after 5ish years go to edv.

they do have a higher nonrev priority with delta but also nothing with United/American except zed and jumpseats.

It also comes down to timing. The guys hired at edv late 2018 had a year of reserve split between nyc/Dtw and flew 200 hrs that first year! Guys hired that time at skywest are upgrading in the next month or 2 if they want. Maybe it’s better for edv guys now.

This is all assuming the music doesn’t stop with the whole corona virus. Skywest has been hiring like gangbusters too, way more than edv and the amount of people below you matters in times like these.

Paid2fly

Don't forget that many regionals have much better user/vacation accrual as well.

Flymeaway

Yep, like I said...it's enough to make your head spin and it's pretty much impossible to keep much of it straight when you've never worked in a job like this before. The OP asked specifically for pros, and not cons. Certainly there are cons as well. I'll throw in my opinions on some of those brought up.

I don't think it's fair to call ready reserve abusive. Is it as good as short call? No. Is it as good as flying? No. But, you're being paid for an airport sit. No matter where you go, you'll have a lot of airport sits. A lot. A whole lot. And you mostly won't get paid for them either. Nine block hour, 6 leg, 14 hour FDP days in and out of IAH through thunderstorms in a 200 with a deferred APU in the summer is abusive. Reading the latest novel, watching Netflix and playing Pokemon Go in the airport for 8 hours isn't abuse. It's one of the easiest jobs ever, outside of being a pilot. I wasn't forced to spend years on reserve. In fact, I probably could have gotten away with about 10 weeks total on reserve but I thought reserve was so easy living in base that I bid it for another 3 months before deciding to bid for a line. But, to each his own. Certainly there are some folks who really despise ready for whatever reason.

I'll agree with the poster above that Republic's and Endeavor's pay overall is probably a little higher than SkyWest's. Again, there's so much variance depending on which base you are at. Some will have a lot of open time and incentive pay for that open time. Some will get you right out of reserve and off to 95+ credit hour lines, etc. Some will have you making reserve guarantee for 9 months. It's probably fair to put SkyWest third behind 9E and YX and ahead of the rest.

As far as travel benefits, we probably split the two. Republic adds American, while we typically only get 2 of the 3 legacies to nonrev on. Endeavor does get the wholly owned bump on Delta, but I always found Delta much harder to nonrev on than United, at least domestically. Maybe I've just had really bad luck, but there always seems to be 20-30 standbys listed for 3 seats on Delta, while United's standby lists are like 5 for those 3 seats and 2 people don't show up or misconnect. That's just my own personal experience and anecdotal for sure, but as of now I'd rather have my current benefits than a slight bump on Delta.

Commuter hotels - yep, we don't have them. That's a con. Well, it is if you plan on commuting for a long period of time, which I highly discourage no matter what airline you decide upon and whether they have commuter hotels or not.

Commuter positive space clause - meh, I guess so. The problem is for the airlines with these clauses you get in really big trouble if you don't give yourself the 2 or 3 flights to get to work on time, even if you hardly ever actually miss work. At SkyWest, you really have to miss a lot of commutes before there is any tangible punishment.

Republic has 12 bases all on the east coast and OO's, while we have more, are scattered across the country. Yes, true. Whether that's a pro or a con I suppose depends on the person. If you have no desire to ever head out west, then Republic has more bases on the east coast, and they are a great company to work for as well. I wouldn't fault anyone for choosing Republic if they lived in a junior Republic base and wanted to stay there. So long as you want to be east coast, many of the pros for OO also apply, at least partially, for YX as well. 9E only has 6 bases, but they are also all on the east coast, so it's fair to say 9E has more east coast bases than OO, if that's where you know you want to stay.

Edit: One of the biggest cons a lot of folks see in OO is that we're not unionized. A lot of people feel that a union is necessary and not having one is a huge blight on your company. Others look at Mesa, TSA, GoJet, Compass, and Piedmont and decide that having ALPA at a regional doesn't mean it will be a good place to work. Of all the hate that SkyWest gets though, this is the biggest source.