SkyWest ?’s
08-01-2022, 04:42 PM
#4171
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2008
Posts: 4,244
30mill divided by 15k employees. Is $2,000 each.. 30mill really is not that much money.. now the 990 mill they have in the bank is…
08-01-2022, 04:51 PM
#4172
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2021
Posts: 212
It's unacceptable for a pilot, or we collectively as a pilot group, to ask a simple question like, "Is the GPI program working?" and to get the answer from the SAPA, "We're not going to look into that."
Regional airlines are inherently going to have at least 2 factions and it's probably close to a classic 80/20 distribution:
Group 1) people that want to be at a regional airline for as little time as possible, and are interested in training quality and GPI/Flow-through/etc (the 80%)
Group 2) people that are not interested, not competitive, too old, too many times failed, or too complacent to go to another airline and just want to hang out here for the rest of their careers (the 20%)
Both are totally legitimate groups of the pilot population. The airline needs both to be successful.
Regarding the specific question about GPI....
It's abundantly clear SAPA doesn't care about the GPI program. "We're not a signatory to that agreement." "These people don't answer the phone when we call asking where they're going." Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The overall contract is more important to SAPA, and maybe that is more important *right now*...
But for group 1, the GPI is incredibly important. It's incredibly important to the company in attracting and retaining new FOs. So, naturally some people have some questions about it, like:
- how many people have interviewed?
- how many people have gotten hired?
- how long have those people been here?
Don't we deserve to know that as a pilot at SkyWest? More recent pilots were potentially lured here by the promise of an "industry leading GPI"!
SAPA: "But we can't share that data because we don't have it. And our half-@$$ guesses aren't 100% accurate." OK. Have you asked the company for it? Seems like the company would want to lend some legitimacy to it. Oh, they said no? Then lets get aggressive. Let's have a memo signed by the SAPA reps saying that, "Due to a lack of data and transparency, we don't recommend that SAPA pilots enroll in the GPI program. We don't have enough data to say if it helps you or hurts you." We would have data in 48 hours, I'm willing to bet.
But no, the SAPA response is "psh. That's not our job. We're working on the contract. But, also, manage your expectations about the contract."
I can't see what SAPA is doing for the pilot group. **I'm not saying they're not doing anything for the pilot group.** I'm saying I can't see it. Yeah, the occasional SAPA rep on facebook posts helping people when they have questions about $hitty schedules or questions about policy... but my only other interaction with SAPA is a weekly nonsensical summary of a nonsensical conference call. They could save some time and just email out a subject line of "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS."
I've never even met a SAPA rep, I'm sure they're good people with very good intentions. I'm sure that when/if I reach out to a SAPA rep they will be genuinely caring and helpful. So my beef is not with the individuals, it's with the organization.
When bigger existential questions come up (mostly related to the struggles of my group 2 from above) like "How is the GPI working?" or "Is OO intentionally holding people back from start dates at major airlines?" all we get are pi$$ poor excuses. "We can't tell Delta to give you a seniority number." No $hi+ Mr. SAPA President. But I bet if it was YOUR seniority at stake you would be calling every person you know in SGU to find out what is going on and making a really big deal about it. Metering was brought up on the 7/28 call and the response felt as if they had forgotten that this was even an issue!
SAPA is the only recourse we have. And it's not working. SAPA is irrelevant.
I'm not a big fan of unions. To me, unions are cable news spin machines that overplay their hand at propaganda to stir up strife between the pilot group and the company--that usually ends up hurting both. But honestly, what we have is worse than a union. If unions are cable news, we have a screen full of static in SAPA. (Or no internet connection for you Netflix streaming Zoomers.) There's no useful information coming from SAPA, there's no information being shared by management....and without a more credible story we're left with the dim, small-picture view of the average line pilot:
- SkyWest is bleeding 200+ pilots per month and we're only hiring people who can't get hired by a better paying/better career progression airline, of which there are many.
- Our pay is industry bottom, and much less well-regarded regionals are paying a lot more.
- We have no career progression options, and as a matter of fact our company is actively or passively holding back pilots from progression.
- We proudly have no union. We less proudly have no advocate in SAPA for the 80% of pilots who make up group one.
Therefore, I would not recommend anyone come to work at SkyWest if you can do better. And you probably can.
If you're already here, well, I suggest you spend more time thinking about how to get out versus spending your time and life energy trying to make a difference at SkyWest.
I hope SAPA and management are able to show me a different reality...I want this to be one of the best airlines to work for....anywhere. Here's what I need to see:
1) SkyWest as the highly-regarded regional airline of choice. Pilots come here because the best major airlines love hiring our pilots and we have a clear pathway to make you successful--stay or go.
2) SkyWest with an industry-leading contract in both pay (cash money) and quality of life.
3) SAPA represents the interests of 100% of the pilot group, communicates transparently and productively, and we don't need a union because 1 & 2 are taken care of.
Regional airlines are inherently going to have at least 2 factions and it's probably close to a classic 80/20 distribution:
Group 1) people that want to be at a regional airline for as little time as possible, and are interested in training quality and GPI/Flow-through/etc (the 80%)
Group 2) people that are not interested, not competitive, too old, too many times failed, or too complacent to go to another airline and just want to hang out here for the rest of their careers (the 20%)
Both are totally legitimate groups of the pilot population. The airline needs both to be successful.
Regarding the specific question about GPI....
It's abundantly clear SAPA doesn't care about the GPI program. "We're not a signatory to that agreement." "These people don't answer the phone when we call asking where they're going." Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The overall contract is more important to SAPA, and maybe that is more important *right now*...
But for group 1, the GPI is incredibly important. It's incredibly important to the company in attracting and retaining new FOs. So, naturally some people have some questions about it, like:
- how many people have interviewed?
- how many people have gotten hired?
- how long have those people been here?
Don't we deserve to know that as a pilot at SkyWest? More recent pilots were potentially lured here by the promise of an "industry leading GPI"!
SAPA: "But we can't share that data because we don't have it. And our half-@$$ guesses aren't 100% accurate." OK. Have you asked the company for it? Seems like the company would want to lend some legitimacy to it. Oh, they said no? Then lets get aggressive. Let's have a memo signed by the SAPA reps saying that, "Due to a lack of data and transparency, we don't recommend that SAPA pilots enroll in the GPI program. We don't have enough data to say if it helps you or hurts you." We would have data in 48 hours, I'm willing to bet.
But no, the SAPA response is "psh. That's not our job. We're working on the contract. But, also, manage your expectations about the contract."
I can't see what SAPA is doing for the pilot group. **I'm not saying they're not doing anything for the pilot group.** I'm saying I can't see it. Yeah, the occasional SAPA rep on facebook posts helping people when they have questions about $hitty schedules or questions about policy... but my only other interaction with SAPA is a weekly nonsensical summary of a nonsensical conference call. They could save some time and just email out a subject line of "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS."
I've never even met a SAPA rep, I'm sure they're good people with very good intentions. I'm sure that when/if I reach out to a SAPA rep they will be genuinely caring and helpful. So my beef is not with the individuals, it's with the organization.
When bigger existential questions come up (mostly related to the struggles of my group 2 from above) like "How is the GPI working?" or "Is OO intentionally holding people back from start dates at major airlines?" all we get are pi$$ poor excuses. "We can't tell Delta to give you a seniority number." No $hi+ Mr. SAPA President. But I bet if it was YOUR seniority at stake you would be calling every person you know in SGU to find out what is going on and making a really big deal about it. Metering was brought up on the 7/28 call and the response felt as if they had forgotten that this was even an issue!
SAPA is the only recourse we have. And it's not working. SAPA is irrelevant.
I'm not a big fan of unions. To me, unions are cable news spin machines that overplay their hand at propaganda to stir up strife between the pilot group and the company--that usually ends up hurting both. But honestly, what we have is worse than a union. If unions are cable news, we have a screen full of static in SAPA. (Or no internet connection for you Netflix streaming Zoomers.) There's no useful information coming from SAPA, there's no information being shared by management....and without a more credible story we're left with the dim, small-picture view of the average line pilot:
- SkyWest is bleeding 200+ pilots per month and we're only hiring people who can't get hired by a better paying/better career progression airline, of which there are many.
- Our pay is industry bottom, and much less well-regarded regionals are paying a lot more.
- We have no career progression options, and as a matter of fact our company is actively or passively holding back pilots from progression.
- We proudly have no union. We less proudly have no advocate in SAPA for the 80% of pilots who make up group one.
Therefore, I would not recommend anyone come to work at SkyWest if you can do better. And you probably can.
If you're already here, well, I suggest you spend more time thinking about how to get out versus spending your time and life energy trying to make a difference at SkyWest.
I hope SAPA and management are able to show me a different reality...I want this to be one of the best airlines to work for....anywhere. Here's what I need to see:
1) SkyWest as the highly-regarded regional airline of choice. Pilots come here because the best major airlines love hiring our pilots and we have a clear pathway to make you successful--stay or go.
2) SkyWest with an industry-leading contract in both pay (cash money) and quality of life.
3) SAPA represents the interests of 100% of the pilot group, communicates transparently and productively, and we don't need a union because 1 & 2 are taken care of.
08-01-2022, 05:09 PM
#4173
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Posts: 325
It's unacceptable for a pilot, or we collectively as a pilot group, to ask a simple question like, "Is the GPI program working?" and to get the answer from the SAPA, "We're not going to look into that."
Regional airlines are inherently going to have at least 2 factions and it's probably close to a classic 80/20 distribution:
Group 1) people that want to be at a regional airline for as little time as possible, and are interested in training quality and GPI/Flow-through/etc (the 80%)
Group 2) people that are not interested, not competitive, too old, too many times failed, or too complacent to go to another airline and just want to hang out here for the rest of their careers (the 20%)
Both are totally legitimate groups of the pilot population. The airline needs both to be successful.
Regarding the specific question about GPI....
It's abundantly clear SAPA doesn't care about the GPI program. "We're not a signatory to that agreement." "These people don't answer the phone when we call asking where they're going." Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The overall contract is more important to SAPA, and maybe that is more important *right now*...
But for group 1, the GPI is incredibly important. It's incredibly important to the company in attracting and retaining new FOs. So, naturally some people have some questions about it, like:
- how many people have interviewed?
- how many people have gotten hired?
- how long have those people been here?
Don't we deserve to know that as a pilot at SkyWest? More recent pilots were potentially lured here by the promise of an "industry leading GPI"!
SAPA: "But we can't share that data because we don't have it. And our half-@$$ guesses aren't 100% accurate." OK. Have you asked the company for it? Seems like the company would want to lend some legitimacy to it. Oh, they said no? Then lets get aggressive. Let's have a memo signed by the SAPA reps saying that, "Due to a lack of data and transparency, we don't recommend that SAPA pilots enroll in the GPI program. We don't have enough data to say if it helps you or hurts you." We would have data in 48 hours, I'm willing to bet.
But no, the SAPA response is "psh. That's not our job. We're working on the contract. But, also, manage your expectations about the contract."
I can't see what SAPA is doing for the pilot group. **I'm not saying they're not doing anything for the pilot group.** I'm saying I can't see it. Yeah, the occasional SAPA rep on facebook posts helping people when they have questions about $hitty schedules or questions about policy... but my only other interaction with SAPA is a weekly nonsensical summary of a nonsensical conference call. They could save some time and just email out a subject line of "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS."
I've never even met a SAPA rep, I'm sure they're good people with very good intentions. I'm sure that when/if I reach out to a SAPA rep they will be genuinely caring and helpful. So my beef is not with the individuals, it's with the organization.
When bigger existential questions come up (mostly related to the struggles of my group 2 from above) like "How is the GPI working?" or "Is OO intentionally holding people back from start dates at major airlines?" all we get are pi$$ poor excuses. "We can't tell Delta to give you a seniority number." No $hi+ Mr. SAPA President. But I bet if it was YOUR seniority at stake you would be calling every person you know in SGU to find out what is going on and making a really big deal about it. Metering was brought up on the 7/28 call and the response felt as if they had forgotten that this was even an issue!
SAPA is the only recourse we have. And it's not working. SAPA is irrelevant.
I'm not a big fan of unions. To me, unions are cable news spin machines that overplay their hand at propaganda to stir up strife between the pilot group and the company--that usually ends up hurting both. But honestly, what we have is worse than a union. If unions are cable news, we have a screen full of static in SAPA. (Or no internet connection for you Netflix streaming Zoomers.) There's no useful information coming from SAPA, there's no information being shared by management....and without a more credible story we're left with the dim, small-picture view of the average line pilot:
- SkyWest is bleeding 200+ pilots per month and we're only hiring people who can't get hired by a better paying/better career progression airline, of which there are many.
- Our pay is industry bottom, and much less well-regarded regionals are paying a lot more.
- We have no career progression options, and as a matter of fact our company is actively or passively holding back pilots from progression.
- We proudly have no union. We less proudly have no advocate in SAPA for the 80% of pilots who make up group one.
Therefore, I would not recommend anyone come to work at SkyWest if you can do better. And you probably can.
If you're already here, well, I suggest you spend more time thinking about how to get out versus spending your time and life energy trying to make a difference at SkyWest.
I hope SAPA and management are able to show me a different reality...I want this to be one of the best airlines to work for....anywhere. Here's what I need to see:
1) SkyWest as the highly-regarded regional airline of choice. Pilots come here because the best major airlines love hiring our pilots and we have a clear pathway to make you successful--stay or go.
2) SkyWest with an industry-leading contract in both pay (cash money) and quality of life.
3) SAPA represents the interests of 100% of the pilot group, communicates transparently and productively, and we don't need a union because 1 & 2 are taken care of.
Regional airlines are inherently going to have at least 2 factions and it's probably close to a classic 80/20 distribution:
Group 1) people that want to be at a regional airline for as little time as possible, and are interested in training quality and GPI/Flow-through/etc (the 80%)
Group 2) people that are not interested, not competitive, too old, too many times failed, or too complacent to go to another airline and just want to hang out here for the rest of their careers (the 20%)
Both are totally legitimate groups of the pilot population. The airline needs both to be successful.
Regarding the specific question about GPI....
It's abundantly clear SAPA doesn't care about the GPI program. "We're not a signatory to that agreement." "These people don't answer the phone when we call asking where they're going." Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. The overall contract is more important to SAPA, and maybe that is more important *right now*...
But for group 1, the GPI is incredibly important. It's incredibly important to the company in attracting and retaining new FOs. So, naturally some people have some questions about it, like:
- how many people have interviewed?
- how many people have gotten hired?
- how long have those people been here?
Don't we deserve to know that as a pilot at SkyWest? More recent pilots were potentially lured here by the promise of an "industry leading GPI"!
SAPA: "But we can't share that data because we don't have it. And our half-@$$ guesses aren't 100% accurate." OK. Have you asked the company for it? Seems like the company would want to lend some legitimacy to it. Oh, they said no? Then lets get aggressive. Let's have a memo signed by the SAPA reps saying that, "Due to a lack of data and transparency, we don't recommend that SAPA pilots enroll in the GPI program. We don't have enough data to say if it helps you or hurts you." We would have data in 48 hours, I'm willing to bet.
But no, the SAPA response is "psh. That's not our job. We're working on the contract. But, also, manage your expectations about the contract."
I can't see what SAPA is doing for the pilot group. **I'm not saying they're not doing anything for the pilot group.** I'm saying I can't see it. Yeah, the occasional SAPA rep on facebook posts helping people when they have questions about $hitty schedules or questions about policy... but my only other interaction with SAPA is a weekly nonsensical summary of a nonsensical conference call. They could save some time and just email out a subject line of "NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS."
I've never even met a SAPA rep, I'm sure they're good people with very good intentions. I'm sure that when/if I reach out to a SAPA rep they will be genuinely caring and helpful. So my beef is not with the individuals, it's with the organization.
When bigger existential questions come up (mostly related to the struggles of my group 2 from above) like "How is the GPI working?" or "Is OO intentionally holding people back from start dates at major airlines?" all we get are pi$$ poor excuses. "We can't tell Delta to give you a seniority number." No $hi+ Mr. SAPA President. But I bet if it was YOUR seniority at stake you would be calling every person you know in SGU to find out what is going on and making a really big deal about it. Metering was brought up on the 7/28 call and the response felt as if they had forgotten that this was even an issue!
SAPA is the only recourse we have. And it's not working. SAPA is irrelevant.
I'm not a big fan of unions. To me, unions are cable news spin machines that overplay their hand at propaganda to stir up strife between the pilot group and the company--that usually ends up hurting both. But honestly, what we have is worse than a union. If unions are cable news, we have a screen full of static in SAPA. (Or no internet connection for you Netflix streaming Zoomers.) There's no useful information coming from SAPA, there's no information being shared by management....and without a more credible story we're left with the dim, small-picture view of the average line pilot:
- SkyWest is bleeding 200+ pilots per month and we're only hiring people who can't get hired by a better paying/better career progression airline, of which there are many.
- Our pay is industry bottom, and much less well-regarded regionals are paying a lot more.
- We have no career progression options, and as a matter of fact our company is actively or passively holding back pilots from progression.
- We proudly have no union. We less proudly have no advocate in SAPA for the 80% of pilots who make up group one.
Therefore, I would not recommend anyone come to work at SkyWest if you can do better. And you probably can.
If you're already here, well, I suggest you spend more time thinking about how to get out versus spending your time and life energy trying to make a difference at SkyWest.
I hope SAPA and management are able to show me a different reality...I want this to be one of the best airlines to work for....anywhere. Here's what I need to see:
1) SkyWest as the highly-regarded regional airline of choice. Pilots come here because the best major airlines love hiring our pilots and we have a clear pathway to make you successful--stay or go.
2) SkyWest with an industry-leading contract in both pay (cash money) and quality of life.
3) SAPA represents the interests of 100% of the pilot group, communicates transparently and productively, and we don't need a union because 1 & 2 are taken care of.
08-01-2022, 07:11 PM
#4175
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2018
Posts: 1,086
08-02-2022, 04:35 AM
#4176
On Reserve
Joined APC: Apr 2022
Posts: 13
That, sir, is why I start class today. The only other regional that has good western base options is QX…and they aren’t hiring.
08-02-2022, 06:41 PM
#4180
Line Holder
Joined APC: Nov 2020
Position: F/O
Posts: 60
I have said this for years. As much as SKW management has truly hurt the regional sector from a pilot's perspective. If you live on the west coast, you have Horizon, or Mesa. Most carriers in the Fee-For-Departure sector are Midwest and east coast making for a heck of a commute.
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