Originally Posted by
umop apisdn
Would any guys over there already care to comment on whether it is a noticeable problem?
There is lots of movement happening at SkyWest. My seniority has gone up 450 since joining 10 months ago. That'a an average of at least 45 per month leaving for the majors. I know of someone who is junior to me also leaving for bigger and better things.
The size of the operation is hard to comprehend if you're coming from outside of the US. SkyWest as a regional is bigger than some of the majors such as Alaska/Virgin America. The ERJ175 fleet alone has a fleet of 106 aircraft with an additional 25 just announced for 2018 for the Delta and Alaska partners. The combined ERJ/CRJ fleet is over 400 aircraft and SkyWest operates 2300 flights
per day.
The pilot shortage is real. I had a United Captain jumpseat on one of our flights and he was saying United alone, will be recruiting 1200 pilots in 2018. I would guess the other majors, Delta, American and Southwest will be needing pilots on a large scale too and they will be hoovering them up from the regionals such as SkyWest and their wholly owned subsidiaries.