MatchPoint

A quick glance at XJT’s 10K’s shows that XJT hasn’t turned a profit since 2006 and regardless of how you spin XJT’s 2008 contract it was your Mgmt. team that agreed to the terms in an effort to stand alone. Jerry and friends saw an investment opportunity and CAL schooled the two parties. In the end SkyWest is paying for it, literally. Besides XJT’s slide began a long time ago in 2005 when CAL pulled 69 jets and ExpressJet attempted branded operations. I admit it was a bold attempt and ExpressJet’s branded operations had a good model and product but many reason lead to its downfall.

As for your crap pay comments, I love how those who don't understand business go straight to an extreme. This business model will not support the average pilot making $200K/yr., but will support a sold wage for a subcontractor not $20K on 25 days of work. Just remember you're a subcontractor providing fee that mainline want's for the cheapest price. If you can't provide it they will give the flying to someone else who's cheaper (GoJet). Don’t believe me? Go just ask for 20% pay raises and see what happens.

MatchPoint

I agree with you and I hold no ill-will toward XJT, we're all subcontractors. At one time SkyWest had over $1B in the bank and had only lost money twice in its 40 year history. I hope the "New XJT" achieves the profitability Mgmt. thinks it will. I do feel at some point, not today or next year and probably long after I'm gone, but at some point they will have to merge us all.

blastoff

And a quick glance at the industry over the same period shows that nobody besides Southwest and SkyWest fared much better than XJT. But for all the hemming and hawing about buying an "in the red" XJT by SKW and ASA folks, they played a part of that picture from the beginning, and that's no "Spin." If XJT was a money loser, the SKYW Management team wouldn't have tried to buy XJT twice. Despite the CPA not generating enough revenue, the one thing it did do was lock in 10 years of flying, something that guaranteed that XJT was not on "its last legs" as some would contend, and something that now makes SKYW not just a competitive bidder for UAL flying, but also a stakeholder in the eyes of UAL.
Agreed. Inc will either be profitable as 2 stand-alone carriers or it will have to be combined, it can be either way, but 5-8 years down the road I can't see them justifying to shareholders why the 2 must be separate with duplicate mgmt teams. Don't be shocked to see radically different 10K filings, especially once a JCBA is done. The SkyWest side also has Pro-Rate flying that will lose a lot of money this summer.

What

Look how drastically the industry has changed in the last 5 years, even management doesn't know what the company will look like in 2015, they have a plan but with AMR in BK, United and Delta are likely to force changes upon their regionals!

drrhythm2

I realize we are subcontractors. I wish we weren't, but skywest is moving in the right direction. We now control about 70% of the regional flying for United, a position that gives us additional leverage, and the economy of scale that comes from our size should also give us a competitive advantage. It's my hope that this will allow for reasonable, incremental improvements in our contract and pay. Not 20%, nothing outrageous, just a bump. There are things other than pilot pay that factor into the winning of contracts (performance, other labor groups, management competency, culture, safety record, etc), and if we can lead in those areas we should have a leg up as well.

Read this excellent post from back during the merger, especially the last few paragraphs. I think you might then see what we can bring to the table in terms of our contract with the new United. Essentially, by buying us Skywest has guaranteed their future and put themselves a leg up on most competitors for the next decade, at least in regards to being the biggest, most essential regional feed for the world's largest airline. It also provides a likely upgrade path to newer, larger RJ's down the road.

Besides, if management can find a way to pay us all a little better, that will serve them down the road as they try to compete for a new pipeline of pilots as (hopefully), the shortage begins to take hold. There's a cultural advantage as well to having a happier pilot group. Gordon Bethune understood the advantages of culture at the old Continental. I think Skywest management does as well. I hope.

blastoff

I think that's a given, hence why everyone is trying to get bigger (RAH/PCL/SKYW)...to insulate against future losses and remove small competitors from contention, and be large enough to dictate the terms of some of these changes ahead.

Window_Seat

Gotta sleep at night too though

SkyWestPilot1

I'm not really sure why we're fighting... I've been riding in the js for the past several months on XJ. The guys (and gals) have been AWESOME. We are all in the same boat. We're just individual employees. We're all the same. We don't, and can't control what the company that we work for does, Individualy. That being said, cost does matter. I ran into a xj fo several months ago in ORD and we got to talking about the future. He asked how things were at Skywest and I said not to bad, although the company WE work for is losing money for the first time in I don't know how long. He said, and I quote, "don't worry about it, we lost money at XJ for years before we were broke, it'll be fine" I didn't really know what to say. Now, I'm sure he doesn't speak for everyone at XJ, I hope. But that mentality is a death sentence. No matter how much SKW, Inc has in the bank it WILL be gone if we don't control costs. I promise you that the airline with the lowest costs will see the growth, union or not. That is the ONE way we can control our future. Guys, do what you want over there, but remeber Skywest INC is in the this to make a profit. I talked to Chip in DEN the other day for the "road show" and he said that right now, they have "buyers remorse" over the XJ purchase, but hope that things will improve. Good luck to us all, to get onto the next step! Good night

Wingtips

I personally would not go to Skywest. They sound like PNCL.

3 airlines and a **** match over who is the one losing money, and what will likely be a merged seniority list at some point. Sounds like a great plan, wait till the guy running the places dies and his dumb ass adopted half retarded son takes over, and gives himself a 1 million $ a week raise.

drrhythm2

Who is "Chip?"

If he isn't the CEO, CFO, or a board member, I don't think his opinion matters for much. Again, our value wasn't in immediate profitability. Any executive with half a brain that knows how to read a balance sheet and a cash flow statement wouldn't have expected to short term profit from buying xjet. Did you read the article I posted last time? The long term value is in our contracts and economies of scale. When does Skywest report first quarter financials? Let's see what those say.

FYI, Xjet has been on a cost-cutting program for several years now, with noticeable results. We've been getting leaner, just look at the trends. Now, if the ASA half can just somehow work a decent contract from Delta in the next few years, we'll be in business.

If you have not read the news, it looks like Pinnacle just filed for Chapter 11, and were saved by a loan from Delta. The only reason I can think of for Delta to do this is to keep another competitor in the arena, and specifically one that (should they emerge successfully) will have used the bankruptcy process to become artificially more competitive, and thus have a cheap airline to threaten their other carriers with. We'll see what happens.