This goes against my own best interests, but I'm gonna say it anyways. If I were looking to get into the 121 game right now, I'm not sure SKW would be my first choice. Simply for the reason that we've hired a TON of guys starting in December 2013. The hiring floodgates opened then and have not stopped. Just as an illustration, if you were hired in Dec. 2013 you would now be in the top 15-20% of FOs in certain West Coast CRJ bases. And you would have been able to upgrade 3 months ago. Which is incredible, if you think about it.

This has been great for guys who got hired between, say, Dec. 2013 and late 2014 (I'm in that group). But for guys getting hired now...you are gonna be at the bottom of a 4,000+ pilot group, a huge number of which were hired in the last year or two. When I signed on, we had 3,200 pilots and I've gone up more than 700 spots. So in the last 2.5 years or so, we've added 800 pilots. Many of these guys are not going to leave for the LCCs or majors anytime soon, because so many of them were hired right at 1,500 hours.

At the same time, I don't see us securing huge amounts of new flying.

My point is, I do wonder what sort of seniority movement you'll see if you're just starting out at SKW. It certainly won't be anything like what my classmates have seen. Nearly all of us are now able to upgrade, but we were lucky enough to get hired when we did.

Then again, what I said above may well apply to every other regional out there, given the current hiring craze. And if you live in a SKW base, you'd be crazy not to at least consider coming here. But still, just food for thought...

 

We all thought the same thing when it was 2000 pilots. It worked out. SkyWest could be 6000 pilots in a few years. You never know...

 

Yeah but...where's that flying gonna come from? I don't see any of the majors falling all over themselves to outsource more flying (and they're already scoped out, so they couldn't even if they wanted to.) With both UA and DAL taking back some of the outsourced flying, I don't see where SKW really has strong opportunities for growth. We lost the IAH flying to Mesa, and DTW isn't remotely replacing that.

 

We've already seen all the consolidation at the majors now I think we will see it at the regionals.

 

This all makes sense when the majors aren't hiring but last I checked Delta, American, United are all looking to hire hundreds of pilots in 2017 alone EACH. This doesn't include the LLC's. Even if SkyWest doesn't secure anymore additional flying I'm going to venture out to say we "post 2014 hires" will be just fine. I've been here over a year and am losing 40-50 numbers a month in seniority and that number is at worst going to stay steady if not increase.

I'm not understanding your point. As far as upgrade, is there a possibility it may Plateau a bit with the influx of hiring, maybe, maybe not. But in the state of the industry today, nobody is in a bad spot unless they are working for airline that will go out of business before they can move on.

Finally you mentioned you wouldn't come here as a new hire today because of all the hiring we are doing, so you would go to... XJT or Air Wisconsin, somewhere struggling to fill classes?



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Like i said. Thats what we all thought years ago.... Things happen.. wasnt thay long ago that career expectaion at a regional was turboprop captain, making 50k a year. Now thats a thing of the past.. And RJ captain making 100k a year in under 3-4 years at most regionals is easy to do...

 

I can't say I have a better idea as to where to go. All I'm saying is, SKW basically hired zero pilots in 2012 and 2013. The hiring bonanza started in Dec. 2013 and has continued unabated. A new hire coming to SKW now cannot expect the same rapid seniority progression that the late 2013/ early 2014 hires are seeing, i.e. a less than 2.5-year upgrade.

Of course, it's not like there are obviously better options out there. It's just that this magical upgrade bandwagon has left, and if you're getting hired now, you can't remotely expect that sort of upgrade time. Nor, I guess, will you see yourself in the top 15% of a base in just over 2 years. Because we hired a lot of people in 2014/15/16, and most of those guys don't have the hours to go to a ULCC, LCC, or major.

That is all.

 

For the record we hired gobs of pilots in 2012. The first month to miss a class was Jan 2013. Classes resumed the fall of 13 (too late as we were short staffed by then)

 

For what it's worth, the Audries Aircraft Analysis site forecasts that SkyWest will attrit over 3200 pilots to the majors over the next 5 years. That's 75% of the current pilot group. If they are correct, the upgrade train hasn't left the station by any means. Especially considering how many lifers we have who aren't going anywhere.

 

This is trying to gaze too deep into the crystal ball. There are too many other factors that come into play.
As you've mentioned, I think this mass increase of new hiring is the case with most of the regionals. Also with the current movement at the majors I wouldn't worry about this as a new hire.
Most importantly, don't you think we have it pretty good at Skywest as far as work rules? Yes there are some flaws, there always are. But I'll say this, if the fit hit the shan tomorrow and all hiring quit abruptly everywhere, I feel like I'm stuck in a decent place. I'm not sure pilots of all the other regionals could say the same thing.