Question for Skywest dispatchers

[manniax]

Heard about this proposed operation recently:

SkyWest Plans To Remove Seats From Bombardier CRJs To Help Alleviate Pilot Shortage Issues

Pilots operating aircraft under Part 135 are not required to hold an airline transport pilot certificate.

simpleflying.com

As it would be Part 135...is Skywest still planning to operate these flights with existing dispatchers? As it would be a different operating certificate and operated under Part 135 rules, I can't find any requirement that they actually have licensed dispatchers, which concerns me. The principal reason it's being set up appears to be so that lower time pilots can operate some of Skywest's EAS flights...but a lot of it seems like an end run around existing Part 121 regulations.

Since the Part 121 transition in the late 1990s, any scheduled service with more than 10 passenger seats has been required to be operated under Part 121, with licensed dispatchers. Prior to that, some airlines did operate 30-seat aircraft (1900s, Brasilias, modified Saab 340s with 4 seats taken out, etc.) under 135 rules where the planes were not required to be dispatched. The requirement for pilots to have at least 1500 hours of flight time for Part 121 was added later, after the Colgan Air crash in 2009. So the whole "operate a subsidiary with 30 seats under Part 135 rules" thing seems suspect to me...both for pilot flight time requirements AND dispatcher/joint authority requirements.

As I don't work at Skywest, I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone who does has more information on it.

 

[TRIGGERED]

I mean it's 135 so there is no joint authority right? I imagine for dispatch it will be no different and they will just operate it basically the same as they do 121. Same as when you do a 91 flight at a 121 carrier since it's more restrictive

 

[flynryan692]

The filing says this will be a separate company operating with a 135 certificate they bought off of another carrier. This is SkyWest Inc. doing this, not SkyWest Airlines. I don't know whether or not the 121 dispatchers will have any hand in it or not. This is the same thing Contour and JSX (which was started as a deluxe public charter under 135 by JetSuite) are doing so SkyWest isn't the evil loophole bad guy a lot of people want to make them out to be. I don't know that much about EAS markets, but my understanding is Contour is a threat to SkyWest, and the Government won't let SkyWest drop their EAS contracts, so this appears to be the only thing they can do to operate the routes given the current circumstances.

 

[jose1337]

Interesting, looks like Contour appears to have "Flight Coordinators", and requires the certificate: Contour

 

[manniax]

Interesting, looks like Contour appears to have "Flight Coordinators", and requires the certificate: Contour

That appears to just be a company requirement though...not a federal one. I don't know all the details of their operation of course. It could be that the feds were more amenable to giving them a certificate if they had licensed dispatchers. The minimum age for that posting is only 18, though...well below the minimum age of 23 to have a dispatcher license.

 

[Karee]

Great Lakes did this and the flight following process was very similar to dispatching their very few 122 flights. It might work for some of their markets.

 

[TN-DX]

That appears to just be a company requirement though...not a federal one. I don't know all the details of their operation of course. It could be that the feds were more amenable to giving them a certificate if they had licensed dispatchers. The minimum age for that posting is only 18, though...well below the minimum age of 23 to have a dispatcher license.

They are basically coordinating the 135 private jet stuff, catering, parking etc. No flight planning of any kind as its all done from the pilots.

 

[retrodx]

They are basically coordinating the 135 private jet stuff, catering, parking etc. No flight planning of any kind as its all done from the pilots.

Although possible, it doesn’t seem probable that a player like SkyWest is about to rely on pilots to plan and file flights with 30 passengers. Even if it’s an option on a 135 certificate, it just doesn’t seem like the FAA would say “looks good”.

Smaller players in the EAS world still use a dedicated group to flight plan. Places like Boutique, Cape Air, and Air Choice One come to mind and they run smaller prop planes.

 

[TN-DX]

Although possible, it doesn’t seem probable that a player like SkyWest is about to rely on pilots to plan and file flights with 30 passengers. Even if it’s an option on a 135 certificate, it just doesn’t seem like the FAA would say “looks good”.

Smaller players in the EAS world still use a dedicated group to flight plan. Places like Boutique, Cape Air, and Air Choice One come to mind and they run smaller prop planes.

My response was in regards to Contour not the Skywest portion.

 

[Shock-Diamonds]

I started my career with SkyWest and spent a couple years there. When I worked for them we seemed to have quite a bit of smaller contrct work doing like JMS-DVL for oil companies and other flying like that which seemed to have little to nobody on them. I'm guessing this 135 flying will be for that stuff, and if so I'd imagine they will still dispatch like normal from their OCC, but I'm curious to see if I'm wrong.

 

[TaxiBack]

If u look into the whole ESA thing u will find that Skywest owns about 85% of all those Guberment routes. Low hanging fruit. There is almost no threat to Skywest's dominance in this sector.