I went back from a composite line to a reserve line. Oh boy:)

Massive what??? Massive junior reserve in some east coast toilet?

I spent my FO years surfing and skiing in socal. I invested some time, and now make more than $300K/three years, live where I want, and drive to work. And now I can stay or move on.

If you want money fast, regionals is not the way to do it. Go to a GOOD law school, get on with a blue chip firm, and get settled in for your 90-hour workweeks.

They will sing about this post for centuries

What a difference 2 months makes.

2 months ago the Skywest upgrade time was down to 9 months for people with experience.

But, now they have taken their 100th ERJ. Their CRJ-700s have switched from United to American. CRJ-200s are coming off contract in September. (Does that mean shrinking?)

Is there any expansion coming or will future upgrades only come as people leave?

Other airlines now have some flow through programs, that, unlike the many in the past that never actually happened, look like they might be real.

This week Air Wisconsin started offering a 31000 bonus, 5000 on day one and 26000 at the end of IOE. Plus another 8000 for those with a type rating. 39000 bonus is a good start. So, after 4 months one would have 39000 bonus plus 10,000 pay or 49000.

Skywest has the 10,000 pay and 7500 for a type rating, or 17500, a difference of 32,500 and no flow through program. Maybe a couple hundred more for their incentives so lets call it 32000.

I've always been told not to underestimate the genius of Skywest. Skywest is up to 4250 pilot. Have they stocked up on pilots already to cover themselves the next year without having to compete with these incentives? Will the pilots mainly stay where they are?

Is Skywest currently a place to consider for a pilot or should someone take the 32000 extra and go elsewhere? Is Skywest still a competitor? Will they step up and compete or do they not need to?

12 AA CRJ 200s are coming off contract but they will be repurposed elsewhere. Meanwhile, we just got 13 CRJ200 deliveries from somewhere (probably ASA or the desert). We still have 4 more E175 deliveries coming. After that, who knows.

Attrition is in the range of 50+ pilots a month (a handful are new hire washouts or noshows), but the active pilots leaving is still a significant number at the moment. Every time I turn around, I hear about another guy leaving for Delta or Southwest (where the majority of our guys are going today). The appeal of SkyWest is the bases and the reputation. If you want to get west of the Mississippi, SkyWest is a good choice for many.

There are rumors of changes and announcements coming soon, so we will see if anything happens. Sure, Air Wisconsin has a nice bonus right now, but they have all their eggs in one basket with a 5 year shelf life. They just pulled a rabbit out of a hat because a couple months ago, that place looked like it was finished. Everything changes fast in this industry. Stay tuned...

This is all about supply and demand. For now, we are filling classes just fine with the current "package". Remember that there is more to $. Whenever I talk to new FOs I ask them why SKYW vs. others. And the consistent answer is reputation and stability.

There is plenty of info out there on the pro's and con's of all regionals. And everyone's situation is different. But we seem to get enough folks while many others appear to run into sourcing problems - despite sign-on bonus and flow ...

I like what SKYW has to offer and it works well for my situation and what I value.

Exactly. Everyone's situation is different, of course. But for me, living in the base I want to live in at a stable company is worth a lot. You couldn't pay me enough to have to commute cross-country to fly for Air Wisconsin, or some of the others with huge bonuses

Unless you live in Chicago or Detroit, upgrade at Skywest is 5+ years so don't forget to factor that in also. If you want to upgrade you'll be commuting a long time.

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Yeah the 200's are just getting a new paint job. I thought it wasn't long ago I read an email from my chief pilot saying we'd have 400 aircraft in the system by the end of summer.

The only thing I will say for new hires getting in now is to expect a long wait to get your transfers to west coast (on the CRJ). You're going to be on the bottom of lists that are stacked up.

That's just my 2 cents from a still new guy here.

Hopefully they transfer more during the summer now that DTW/ORD look adequately staffed well enough (ORD especially) but we will see. I'm not sure if they still advertise 6 months but it's probably going to be longer. Commuting to reserve sucks but still happy I picked this company everyday. Reserve schedules aren't bad either. I'm at least getting what I want in the bid and I have friends elsewhere getting thrown around by other regionals with awful schedules. With the additions SAPA plans to bring to reserve (whenever it gets set in stone) it should be even better too.

I did hear we were going to slow down hiring though (both airplanes) this summer. Not sure if that's true or not but our recent class Facebook picture only had like 20 compared to 30+ on the CRJ.

Ord staffed well? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA maybe for FOs. We consistently have 1-2 reserves a day for 250 captains in ord...

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