I was told by recruiting that SKW is putting interviews on hold until April. My resume was walked in and got a the message two days later.

 

I posted a bit about this over in the Great Lakes forum, but let me pose a question for the SKW guys.

I am currently at 500/100ME/80INST. I am thinking about working as a CFI in PHX for TransPac or doing aerial photo stuff for the next few months to get to the 1000/100ME/100INST I would need for SKW.

OR I am thinking about going to GLA for their 15 month stint and then trying to get into SKW/CPZ.

Would SKW be inclined to call when I meet the bare mins and having only flown C172's, Pipers, & light twins or would I be better off getting some Tprop time at GLA and then making the switch?

 

I got called fairly quickly last September having no turbine time. CFI only. Don't recall totals back in Sept but was not much lower than I am now. 1620TT/143ME/100IMC. I got put on the jet. Hope that helps.

 

I was also hired into the CRJ in August with similar times and experience as tyurchevich. I did have just a sampling of some turbine time with some right seat time in a King Air and Citation, but I don't think it was that big of a factor when it came to SkyWest making the decision to hire me into the CRJ. At the time, they had 2 CRJ classes coming up, or they said that if I wanted the Brasilia they would put me in a hiring pool. I took the CRJ because I was interested in the ORD base. Here is something you might consider though. SkyWest has been steadily hiring since August 2010. For new hires, there is a 1 year aircraft lock, so the people who were hired into the Brasilia initially, were eligible to transition to the CRJ starting back in August 2011. Recently it seems that several Brasilia FOs are transitioning and many of the new hires are getting assigned the Brasilia in order to fill the seats that the transition FOs are leaving open. I bet if I was hired in November as opposed to August, I would have been assigned the Brasilia. From the information that I have seen, it seems like recently, 3 out of every 4 new hires are now being assigned the Brasilia. Of course this isn't to say that they won't give you your choice of aircraft but then again, you aren't guaranteed to be given your choice. But don't get me wrong, I have heard great things about flying the Brasilia routes on the west coast. I just know that it would have been tough for me to afford to live on the west coast and I absolutely did not want to commute. If I were you, I would instruct for 500 more hours instead of going to Great Lakes. I know Great Lakes would be better overall experience, but I've heard very good things about Trans Pac, and if you can go there and make some decent money that you can save up, you will thank yourself during your first year with any regional, including SkyWest. I have really enjoyed flying for SkyWest so far and I highly recommend it. Another airline you might consider after you get a few more hundred hours would be ExpressJet. Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

I don't know what the hiring team is looking for. But if you have the opportunity to get some 121 twin turbine time, I wouldnt be to quick to pass it up. If you want to go to Skywest and have the great lakes experience it will really set you apart from the rest of the crowd.

That being said nothing can replace the knowledge you will get from instructing. I did canyon tours and flew cargo. The 800 hours of dual given is the most valuable time in my log book.

 

I wouldn't be running head over heals to go to Great Lakes just to get turbine time. Every person at Skywest that used to work at Lakes could only say how much they couldn't wait to get out of there and how crappy they were treated. A few ex Lakers I know completely left aviation because of how demoralized that company made them feel about flying.

 

I got the job with Skywest and 90% of my hours have been as a CFI. I had no turbine time, 1300TT/200ME when I was hired. I interviewed with six other people and five of them had less time than me. None of us had turbine time.

 

I can second that. Have a few buddies that were lakers and have since moved on to greener pastures. Some of the stories were pretty grim.

 

Did they just reorganize the Chief pilots? Just logged in to MyInfo on SKWOnline, and supervisor (SFO) went from M.H. to B.V.

Anyone know the deal? Just curious.

 

I heard that last week as well. B.V. to handle LAX also and M.H. to handle FAT and PHX.