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Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I heard that the ASE operation will be expanding into ORD (as in there will be an ASE domicile in ORD) soon and am considering this option. The only downside is the 9month commitment that is included.

Anybody on here care to comment on how the ASE life is for them? I just dont want to start out and then go crazy after a month of doing the same lines over and over.

Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeavyJ (Post 2313131)

You'll fly to the same airports over and over. Think of Aspen as the hub and the big hubs as the outstations.

You'll go missed and divert more times in a month than you probably have your whole time at SkyWest. Captains always do the landings in Aspen and FOs typically do the departure and landing at the hub so there isn't a lot of variety. It's good flying with its own challenges.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hotbreeze (Post 2312692)

The most junior FO based at IAH just moved from 2015 to 2016 (basically 9 months out of training). It jumped 6 months just this month.

And, if a 15 year SFO FO doesn't ever want to commute (for a few months) in order to upgrade, then a pilot needs to be satisfied with their QOL and stay put. It is their choice. The most junior captain on both the CRJ and E-Jet at SFO is much less than 15 years.

The problems that SW pilots have are minuscule compared to others.

They didn't just let that guy into Houston. There were people way senior to him on the list to get in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Is offline (Post 2313187)

They didn't just let that guy into Houston. There were people way senior to him on the list to get in.

I noticed that, any idea what happened?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeavyJ (Post 2313131)

It's been a while since I've been able to do aspen flying but when i did it I LOVED it. If your a line holder that is. The flying can be challenging with lots of missed approaches but seems like all the people that stick with aspen flying are always good people. The layovers are always in big cities so there is lots to do. Guarantee of 83 hours is I remember correctly and usually had 18 days off. When I went to United they loved my aspen stories in the interview, and you'll get plenty of stories.

Everyone knows United is dumping the CRJ-700s. I know Skywest had the Aspen 700s. Does it have many more that it flys for United?

There is another airline that was supposed to do the Aspen flying but was unable to. Their 700 contracts are coming to an end and they were hoping to dump their 700s and bring in 36 ERJ-170s or 175s. In fact I hear they have already entered a deal to get rid of the 700s.

Because they were not able to handle the Aspen flying due to not having a training program (from what I am told), I am hearing that United wants Skywest to do that flying and Skywest is working hard to put a deal together to obtain the planes from the parent company of the other airline.

If any of this is true could Skywest handle another 36 planes? How fast could they take these planes? Might they have any special deals to take the other airline's pilots? Maybe longevity for pay?

Most of the pilots who have the time to hold captain are already captains at Skywest. Can you see a possible street captain program?

Quote:

Originally Posted by StlLifer (Post 2313315)

I believe the other airline is Mesa and yes they couldn't get a training program up and running. They were trying to have people jumpseat into Aspen on OO flights and were taking notes. That came to a quick end when word got out.

OO still has UA 700s flying the routes specifically to EGE and ASE. No word really on additional planes but I can imagine that if AA/DL/UA wanted to beef up the ASE/EGE service, we would have no problem as we have crews ready at multiple domiciles.

Not in a million years would we need to have an agreement to have other pilots fly our planes. We would be able to staff it.

Street captains at OO will also never happen. There's plenty of qualified people already on property.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StlLifer (Post 2313315)

I'm gonna assume you're a water skiing type of guy or big fan of chuck Lindberg.

The *rumor was that GoJet was trying to cobble together ASE flying.

And yeah I'm not gonna speculate on any of that other stuff, but we do offer folks from other airlines longevity for pay (per a check airman I flew with that mentioned soft landings 2.0).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caution Terrain (Post 2313343)

Err no we don't offer that.