Skywest Questions

Ya know, all I ever hear about is SAPA or ALPA. Why are other Pilot Unions not even a consideration? And what is keeping us from forming our own union like southwest?
 
Rodger Wilco said:
Ya know, all I ever hear about is SAPA or ALPA. Why are other Pilot Unions not even a consideration? And what is keeping us from forming our own union like southwest?
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for 1, southwest has 7000+ pilots making an average of 175k and above (aka WAY more money than a skw union ever could). as far as why other unions aren't considered, realistically the only other choice is teamsters. and recent history has had people shy away from the teamsters (aka Allegiant contract shenanigans, RAH etc) mostly because people weren't too focused on some of the good they've done as a general unit.

Also important to remember is that whatever national you belong to, your MEC is ultimately the most important part of the division. Being ALPA doesn't make you suddenly as powerful as DALPA. It just gives you access to some of the same resources they share. At the end of the day ALPA is the biggest conglomerate of MECs and that allows them to have the biggest set of resources that can be of use.

Not saying IBT would be a bad choice, in fact both would be a better choice than forming your own IMHO, which is STILL a better choice than having SAPA.
 
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Autothrust Blue said:
Money, money, and money.

IBT would work, rolling your own like SWAPA is going to be a meme at best.
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That's a meme I can get behind.


Realistically though, they'd have a union income of over 6 million a year which isn't buku bucks but it's certainly not nothing either. (using a 66k median salary at skw)
 
What bases have better flying in terms of longer legs? I'm going to FA training next month and we have to rank the bases in order of preference. I want to preference the bases that have nice, high-credit lines with 3 leg days. Definitely don't want to get stuck flying 5-6 legs on a typical day.

Thanks!
 
ironiccombination said:
What bases have better flying in terms of longer legs? I'm going to FA training next month and we have to rank the bases in order of preference. I want to preference the bases that have nice, high-credit lines with 3 leg days. Definitely don't want to get stuck flying 5-6 legs on a typical day.

Thanks!
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No real clue on the FA side, but if I had to guess based on pilot trips (the two sets aren't perfect matches), places like SEA, PDX, maybe SAN, and BOI would probably be your best best. Really any place with a large E175s presence will tend to have trips available with longer flights and fewer legs per day so you could get them in ORD, SFO, or LAX even. There's even long leg trips available in CRJ bases, they just tend to go senior when the bids are done.

But, being junior, you will get MSP, DTW, ORD, and maybe LGA or ATL whether you want it or not fresh out of training. And then you will sit reserve and get called out for four and five leg days doing no service turns to places you've never heard of.
 
n156499000 said:
And then you will sit reserve and get called out for four and five leg days doing no service turns to places you've never heard of.
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I didn't expect to like some of the Atlanta flying as much as I did, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed going to GTR, TYS, AVL and the like. Even if it was, as mentioned, 5 legs a day.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
I didn't expect to like some of the Atlanta flying as much as I did, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed going to GTR, TYS, AVL and the like. Even if it was, as mentioned, 5 legs a day.
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Oh agreed. 5 leg days in the ATL system are always more pleasant than the similar trips in the upper midwest. Then again, 5 leg days where I don't leave the state of California aren't bad either, well, except for SFO...
 
n156499000 said:
Oh agreed. 5 leg days in the ATL system are always more pleasant than the similar trips in the upper midwest. Then again, 5 leg days where I don't leave the state of California aren't bad either, well, except for SFO...
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You don't like a 5 leg day turning into a 2 leg day because of flow?
 
This is good info, thanks! I actually live in MSP and have family in ORD, so those are my first two choices. First, I need to decide if the pros of being at ORD outweigh having to commute. It sounds like the lines are better, with fewer legs and even a few Mexican routes. Is it all United flying, though? I want to fly for Delta eventually, so it would be nice to be able to say that I'm already representing Delta as a SkyWest FA.

Second, I want to rank the other 18 domiciles in a way that makes it more likely that I get the easy-to-commute-to base with trips that have longer legs and fewer legs per day, and less likely that I will get stuck at LGA or DTW.

n156499000 said:
No real clue on the FA side, but if I had to guess based on pilot trips (the two sets aren't perfect matches), places like SEA, PDX, maybe SAN, and BOI would probably be your best best. Really any place with a large E175s presence will tend to have trips available with longer flights and fewer legs per day so you could get them in ORD, SFO, or LAX even. There's even long leg trips available in CRJ bases, they just tend to go senior when the bids are done.

But, being junior, you will get MSP, DTW, ORD, and maybe LGA or ATL whether you want it or not fresh out of training. And then you will sit reserve and get called out for four and five leg days doing no service turns to places you've never heard of.
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ironiccombination said:
This is good info, thanks! I actually live in MSP and have family in ORD, so those are my first two choices. First, I need to decide if the pros of being at ORD outweigh having to commute.
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They were, at one point, requiring no-commute letters from new hire flight attendants. Don't know if they still are. And I don't know how vigorously they were enforced.

ironiccombination said:
It sounds like the lines are better, with fewer legs and even a few Mexican routes. Is it all United flying, though?
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This varies month to month. ORD for-sure serves United and American, and it has the odd Delta pairing. Someone who's actually there will be able to clue you in on that.

I very much enjoyed being based in MSP as a pilot because I maintain that C.M. is the best chief pilot that SkyWest has; it is also a shockingly competently run airport that handles a lot of traffic with some downright nasty weather (summer and winter - but you're from there, so you already know).

ironiccombination said:
I want to fly for Delta eventually, so it would be nice to be able to say that I'm already representing Delta as a SkyWest FA.
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Not really.

ironiccombination said:
Second, I want to rank the other 18 domiciles in a way that makes it more likely that I get the easy-to-commute-to base with trips that have longer legs and fewer legs per day, and less likely that I will get stuck at LGA or DTW.
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Generally: anywhere that is an outstation is going to have very early shows and very late release times. This is because SkyWest likes having pilot bases in places where maintenance is done, and thus, the schedules lend themselves to 'first flight out, last flight in' in those places.

In MSP, you can go most anywhere worth going, ditto ORD, in one leg. Other than Santa Barbara, for reasons that defy my comprehension.

Acrofox said:
I mean, I primarily bid 8hr two-leg locals. So for me, it’s the right airline at the moment. If I started having to fly 4+ legs a day, I’d probably go somewhere else or do something else.
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k
 
tcco94 said:
You don't like a 5 leg day turning into a 2 leg day because of flow?
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Whenever it happened to me I always seemed to get stuck in SMF. Nothing wrong with Sacramento per se, just seen enough of it. Though the occasional empty leg on the last day from <insert random CA city> to TUS was nice.
 
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