I thought the biggest reason why most were offering hiring bonuses is because they can't attract pilots. And I am so not worried about being special - but I promise you one day when I grow up, I am going to be just like you...

You are indeed "special", just ask your mom. Skywest has been a day late and a dollar short for awhile now. 7-8 year upgrade, no contract, and reserve rules that era back to the dark ages vs which ever regional that has a quick upgrade and 20K signing bonus . Means we are gonna feel the pain, sooner rather than later. Heard the story of a senior EMB120 Captain with a few years left to 65, was handing his resignation letter in to his chief who asked him to reconsider and stay for the transition. Bottom line, Skywest cannot afford to lose one single pilot Jr or Sr.

Not undermining, just putting things in context when CFI's whine about having to get 1500 hours. Once they get there, they have their choice of regionals. Historically 1500 was the earliest you *might* get a call, and even then you'd be waiting many months for a class date. Things are still better now than they were for most of the civilian track pilots in the past.

And SKW was not hiring 650 hour pilots in 2006 (unless maybe they were a close relative of somebody in SGU).

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Not at all. I'm arguing that everyone should be entitled to a hiring bonus if they chose to take the regional path because the pay is ****ty, the contracts are so so and it would help to supplement first year income. Any other interpretations are your own.[/QUOTE]

It's people like you who think you're hot stuff thinking you're risking your life every day to fly with students. If you were worth a dang instructing instead of just trying to get by then you shouldn't be worried about someone killing you. You all (just meet min cfi's) think you're entitled to a huge bonus and people to bow down to you because you're willing to work for them. You're not. We all start at first year pay and deal with it. Someone like you should be weeded out during the interview process here and head over to Republic, TSA, or ev for a bonus. Seriously. Quit whining about deserving more.

Hey now. Let's not lump all us guys who got hired with the mins into one group. I knew full well what I was getting into and prepared financially for first year pay. Not to say I'm not counting down the days to my anniversary, but not all of us are 20-somethings who feel like everyone owes us.

The signing bonus has been canned. I talked to the man in charge last week and he said that they have opted to not do a bonus for now and instead are going to offer a referral bonus. He wouldn't say how much the referral bonus would be but did say that no new hire bonus will be offered for now. They also do have a shorter approved training set up with the FAA but since we don't really have a ton of 121 guys being hired we don't use it. If they did offer $5,000 to any prior RJ pilots then the training footprint is shortened substantially and would save the company over $5,000 so they would just be passing the savings on to the new hire if they gave them the $5,000. A cfi would not get the shrortened training and would actually cost more to train so I can see them not offering it to a cfi because they cost more. Again I can tell you from the man in charge THEIR IS NO SIGNING BONUS BEING OFFERED AS OF LAST WEEK! They will offer a referral bonus.

I didn't realize there were so many super pilots in this thread wow. I especially liked the one about the guy who puts his life on the line everyday to fly with students, well done sir.

I taught the SkyWest interview prep for the Frasca 142. It is garbage and it should be done away with. The best way of knowing who will be succesful is who had experience in a frasca sim, not so much as an IFR experienced aviator. The sim is so pitch sensitive, you can hardly brief an approach or tune a radio. Guys fail for leveling, triming, looking away at a chart for 1 second and it just decided to pitch 10 degrees down. A lot of good pilots fail because they don't know what to expect with that unrealistic kooky sim. The retardation of that sim gave me a job as a prep instructor.

Sim checks are great, but they should get a redbird.

hey 302 that was mostly directed at Da40 pilot who I'm guessing is a young gun da40 pilot with a tomcat patch on his jacket.. I know there are a lot good folks who just got hired with the mins who do deserve to be here that aren't only looking for the money! I hit 2nd year tomorrow myself, you should be counting down man! �

I'm not making any statement about what's deserved, but I will say that where I instructed was some of the busiest GA airspace in the world. Every year saw one or two midairs and their resulting fatalities. My least favorite part of the job was the nearby uncontrolled airports where Grandpas flew their Piper Cubs and had zero understanding of a basic traffic pattern. Radios were optional to these guys.

Closest call I ever had was one of those clowns flying under me at a 90 degree angle from my student's side; he was a wing span away. Never made a radio call.

It wasn't my students I was afraid of.