Sims cost in excess of 7 mil, buildings aren't cheap either. Which is why you aren't running an airline. Pretty sure Inc owns all the SLC CRJ sims, and that isn't solving their problems. The industry is facing a pilot shortage that hasn't occurred since the mid '60s. They are 2 generations of management away from the collective memories that remember how that one played out.
Buying a few sims may work for the military who just take C130s full of cash and lose them. Private industry is slightly different.

 

I do know, and have extensive business experience pre-airlines...I made my money in the private sector, not the military I'm looking at this as a strategic investment (with some risk). Somebody would have to run the numbers of cost vs. what the *expected* return/benefit would be. But I suspect that going forward responsiveness will open up a lot of opportunities. But if you maintain them and cycle them enough they could be ready when needed. Or just use them all routinely, but not at full capacity. Whole point being the nature of this industry could make it worth one's while to be ready to respond.

SKW didn't furlough anybody in 2009, if they had applied the same logic to sims they would be much better off today. This was predictable, everybody knew that after Dec 2012 movement was going to happen. It was also highly predictable that the bottom feeders would not be able to keep up...the only reason the mesas and gohjets have any new-hires is fast upgrades (assuming they can even staff what they got). If SKW could have snagged some more of that growth they would have been much more appealing to new-hires. Inc has turned down some growth recently because they couldn't be sure of staffing it and didn't want to over-promise and fail.

 

And yet dec 2012 was the last jet class until the fall. They really needed to step over the short term pennies for the long term dimes.

 

Exactly they should of been hiring that entire time. That really frustrates me.

 

SkyWest does not own any sims...

 

Check the FSI website, no CRJ sims available in SLC because SKYW has all the sim time booked, they own them and contract with FSI to operate them....

 

I'm pretty sure it's something like SkyWest leases them from FSI and has total control and use of them.

 

How did it play out?

 

In the '60s there was street hiring with wet instrument tickets. The guys were going to the panel so a FE was required, things are a little different today, but with 80k retention bonuses all bets are off. This is new territory.

 

UAL went to HS to recruit. They hired HS grads with PPL. They had them on the payroll, and trained them, then put them to work as Flight Engineers...then they worked their way up.

AA/UAL/DAL will have to either guarantee loans, or hire non-pilots, or very low-qualed pilots and train them...unless they can get the gov't or someone else to guarantee loans...and even guaranteed training loans may not get enough bodies into cockpits....