flight attendant

first officer

pilot

aircraft mechanic

dispatcher

Skywest-Airlines

PROS. Benefits (primarily self/family flights, etc.) are great if you plan on utilizing them. Travel opportunities are vast. Days definitely vary, and you can strategize with your team to switch things up - don't be afraid to speak up. Great exercise and a lot of regular movement. An incredible learning opportunity across so many different platforms. Customer service oriented which, if you enjoy working with people, will be right up your alley. When things are operating in a flow, it is awesome. Aircrafts are sweet to work with. Most high-ups elected this field because they love travel and airplanes, and they will share their passion with you.

CONS. Finding time off can be incredibly difficult, especially for teams/supervisors/managers that are qualified for particular roles. You are not going to make enough money, hourly or salary, unless you're planning to move up with the company. Flight cancellations/delays are an unfortunate but inevitable occurrence which can lead to your days being entirely consumed (scrap all your life plans) - getting stuck with split shifts make this the absolute worst. There are times you'll start and get off when the sun is coming up, and your next day starts when the sun is coming up, and if you can't get coverage, it will take a toll on your mental health.  Faltering under timed situations, for some management teams, could cause you to be reprimanded. You'll have some employees that only work for benefits but do the bare minimum which can lead to a strenuous work environment.

MIXED. Flight schedules are ever-changing by the month, so don't expect to have all your personal plans free. Shift-trading, with a good team, is great, but some are not going to give up what they get (goes by seniority). Poor teams lead to poor performance, and it will be noticeable. There's almost so much you have to remember you'll definitely forget/mistake something along the way, but always stay on your toes and never get complacent or cut corners. Managers are a toss-up, but smaller stations typically have it great - stressful meeting demands as there isn't as much going on, but personable and able to converse with regularly. Larger stations are where it is tougher. TSA or flight or airport personnel - some are great, some expect you to meet their demands instantly when you're occupied with your own work (when the latter happens, it is incredibly frustrating) - you have to remind yourself they aren't who you are working for.

OVERALL. Like any job: there are great days, there are bad days!

I worked as a flight attendant. The first 2 years you are their slave. They literally own you. The tell you where to live immediately after graduating the inflight program. You have 3 days to get to your new domicile and figure out where to live before they start working you to the bone.  If it's the holidays, it's even worse. Be prepared to work around the clock due to delays and weather. You can work 4-7 days straight 12-20 hour days. No lie. And if the hours are "weather related," then are legally allowed to work you that long without overtime. Speaking of pay, whenever you are waiting in an airport or sitting in a hotel (sometimes for a day or 2), or sitting in the plane that's going nowhere, you are making per diem 
($7.50/hour) ONLY.  The hourly rate they advertise is only paid to you during "flight hours," meaning while you are in the sky.

Do not work here if you can avoid it. They care nothing for their employees.  In the event of an emergency, such as my fractured knee (happened on the job, workers comp doctors disputed it. I was forced to miss 3 weeks, unpaid, without medical coverage) or your flight attendant roommate gets in a car accident (with a concussion, the dr advised me to watch her every hour that night to make sure she didn't die in her sleep)..... if you are lucky enough to get a crew support member who is kind when you call, what they are not telling you is "yes, you may drop this trip, but be prepared to be written up, and this stays on your record for 3 years.) You will be on probation for the first year at least, whether your behavior and attendance is perfect or horrendous. 

There will be days you don't eat, nights you don't sleep, and a lot of life lost in the process. You literally will have no personal life again, unless you don't mind missing a lot of work and being dead broke. Then again, the most I ever made after working there for 4 years was $21,000.... and that was working A LOT of trips and sacrificing my health (knee problems and migraines are common flight attendant maladies) and entire life (nights, holidays, weekends, relationships, etc). You will not be able to go to school, work another job, or maintain a relationship unless you live with the guy or he's a pilot... and watch out for them! Most of the time they're married and hooking up with many FA's.

Happy Flying!! You were warned.

The company overall is great to work for, but this base has issues. At Tucson, management does a poor job with maintenance planning which in turn screws the mechanics as the mechanics are ultimately responsible for all maintenance; it puts a ton of pressure on mechanics to get work done which can easily result in pencil-whipping, short-cutting, and improper maintenance being conducted. Management also doesn't bother to make sure equipment and tools are available and/or in a working condition. There is virtually no support from leadership during maintenance operations when it is needed(a mixture of inexperience and apathy). Management doesn't seem to care for the concerns of the mechanics, whether they are safety concerns or concerns about how leadership treats mechanics. Management doesn't communicate with mechanics and is at many times unapproachable. Past decisions made by management has given the impression that there is a very unhealthy level of favoritism going on within this maintenance base. Leadership in inexperienced, supervision knows this and doesn't trust leadership, so supervision feels the need to micromanage which puts pressure on mechanics and leadership. 
I could go on, as I'm sure there are other things I'm missing, but this is all that comes to mind at the moment. This isn't the first maintenance base I've worked at with skywest, so I know what work culture is supposed to be like. I came here looking to save money as it is cheaper overall to live in AZ, but this base has prompted me to move back to the base I was at previously. Tucson does have the best performance maintenance-wise, but it is at the expense of the mechanics, as a result Tucson has a massive turnover rate, more so than any other base in Skywest; people come and go within months because of uncompetitive pay coupled with all that was stated above; mechanics simply aren't willing to deal with the terrible culture this base has vs going to a major airline which pays more and has a much better and more tolerable work culture.

For this job the company requires you to be very flexible. You will check-in customers, sometimes sell tickets, ensure passport info is accurate (or you could be fined personally... so I've been told) load and unload bags, work in extreme weather, de-ice airplanes (huge responsibility by itself), clean airplanes, be responsible for ensuring hazmat isn't loaded onto the plane, search the plane for things that could go boom (yeah you're responsible for that), empty the lavatory ( that's the bathroom). Besides some of those responsibilities, you also have to deal with irate passengers when the flight cancels or gets delayed or if their bags don't show up when they arrive and do lots and LOTS of training. When you DO go to your initial training the company is so cheap that they won't even give you your own hotel room, you have to share with some person you've never met before. You are normally scheduled 5 days a week but only working maybe 16 hours because you go in for a 2 hour shift in the morning and then have to come back in the evening for another 2 hour shift and if the flight is late, you have to stay as long as it takes (sometimes 3 or 4 hours) until it's gone so don't make plans or have another part time job. This company will make you think it's a great place to work with lots of corporate propaganda but the truth is, they take their employees for granted. Bonuses for your department are not held to the same standard as another department even though you're supposed to be one big happy family.You start off at $8.50/hr and you get a raise to $8.90 after working 1900hrs. If you're working the usual part time hours that would take you about 2 years. 2 years for a 40 cent raise is a joke, but so is the starting pay.         
In a nutshell, you wear a lot of hats,work in hazardous environments, you have people's safety in your hands but you're making not much more than minimum wage. If you do actually work for this company and stay, have fun with the constant turn-over.

Salt Lake City airport - fun place to work, awesome coworkers. The work is not hard, but you are literally running from one gate to the next to bring in the aircraft and get the luggage unloaded. We are always short handed because skywest refuses to pay its ramp agents what most other airlines at salt lake city airport pays their ramp agents. The supervisors will tell you to go outside and work the flights and to help other agents, but they themselves will never lift a finger to assist. There have been many instances where a supervisor will see an agent loading the luggage onto the aircraft by themselves and make no effort to go help them. They have a point system with no flexibility at all. When there is a snowstorm or accident that brings the freeway to a standstill, even if you call to notify them of the situation,  you still get points. If you are on time and get to the terminal and realize you forgot your clock in badge in your vehicle, you will have to take the shuttle back out to the employee parking, which takes about 20-30 minutes round trip, then get points for being late. If there are coworkers there at the terminal with you that can vouch for you that you were on time, it doesn't matter. Employee appreciation day is a joke. They feed the pilots, flight attendants and mechanics good food (bbq steaks, ribs, cafe rio), but they feed the ramp agents something of lesser quality (fritos taco salad).  All departments start off at a higher rate, while ramp agents start off at $10.50. Despite the unfair treatment of ramp agents, we are still able to get all luggage loaded and other preflight duties completed for on time departure, including late arrivals with less than 30 minutes to turn the aircraft around, out the gate on time.

If you plan on working this job, you should know that you will be working in a fast-paced environment which requires a high level of patience and composure. The airlines have not only gotten more negative, but passengers themselves are less civil and reasonable these days as well. It is, nonetheless, a good job for someone who is a "people-person." You do meet people from every walk and cross-section of life.

The pay is paltry, the flight benefits outstanding. This would be a great job for someone coming out of high school without a clear idea of what they want to do or for someone looking for flight benefits for their family.

One aspect of working at the airport that also needs to be taken into consideration is how early one needs to arrive and how long it takes to clear through security, get to your car before you can depart. An 8-hour shift can easily turn to a 11-hour commitment. When weather delays and cancellations occur, you can be forced to stay well past your assigned shift--often until 1-2 AM and supervisors don't care or take into consideration if you have an early morning shift the next day when deciding who has to stay behind.

One negative is that the more competent you are, the more likely you are to be singled out for difficult and challenging assignments which I don't mind, but it can wear on you after awhile when you work successive days without even time for lunch.

Pay cuts made it less than worthwhile to drive and take employee bus. It can make average part time pay come out to anywhere between $7-$9 to start after transportation costs. Be prepared to add up to 3 hours travel time or more to and from work. Shifts are staggered so it is hard to get hours together so they can get you to work more without paying OT by bridging. New night ramp agents stay well past times scheduled to be off most days, which can make it more worthwhile or less- depending on who you are. So desperate for people they sign you off on things you don't really know how to do. One supervisor is unaware of what the other is doing, making it easy for write ups. Breaks can be few and far between or at times that don't make sense:beginning or end of shift. Fun job, warm lower level employees but made difficult to justify by being seen as a number by upper management. Advice: work minimal hours for benefits. Don't complain about ill equipment, unfair practices & don't make this your only job. Many unhappy employees due to pay cuts, benefit cuts, and soon to be again... Hour caps from Obama Care. Over all- fun job, demanding, but illogical. Pay too low to do anything when you fly somewhere, travel time to and from could be best spent on being paid lower at another job to buy your airline ticket & not have to deal with the stressors of non-rev, and trying to trade shifts or get rid of hours to make it worth it or not be over worked. My advice too... probably apply at a different airline if it is something you wish to do for a long time. Not many employees have stayed more than 10years unless you are a pilot or flight attendant and salary caps take a long time to reach but are still well below what is considered a comfortable wage for living standards in CO.

I loved my time with SkyWest Airlines. The traveling was a blast, both for work and for fun. They really take good care of their employees. The only hard part about it was when our employment got restructured and I went from full time with benefits and hours and a semi-decent pay, to no hours, no benefits, reduced pay, all because of a bigger airline wanted to take advantage of us and reduce what we got, and still got to use us as a smaller contract airlines.
In a work day, we would show up at the airport and prepare the computer and paperwork for the upcoming flight, one would do this while another would begin to check in, and the third would prepare the blacktop with the equipment and prepare for the flight. I learned how to deal with angry, anxious, nervous, and all other types of passengers, how to deal with hazmat and expensive goods, and people with special needs. Our manager was definitely like family. She took my place while my daughter was in the hospital so that I could be with her. Our manager would not have you do something that she would not do herself. She was a true leader. My coworkers were like family as well, and we would cover each other. When I met coworkers from other stations, it was like we were friends all along. The hardest part of the job was trying to make ends meat when the cut backs occurred, and that the bigger airline put into their new contract that we no longer had priority on our own aircraft, but their employees did. That made it a bit harder to fly. The most enjoyable part of the job was that we were family, and getting to fly anywhere we liked any time that we chose.

I think as far as regionals go, Skywest is a good place to work. Right now, with the ripple effects of COVID, however, I don’t think it’s a good time to work at a regional airline. There’s a lot of people quitting because of pay not keeping up with inflation, policy changes to accommodate pilot shortages, and overtime to cover the loses of other flight attendants leaving to go mainline or leaving because of the above problems. It’s a fun job with a lot of adventure, but right now isn’t the best time in my opinion—but if you can wait out the bad for a couple years you’ll gain a TON of seniority and I think it’d get better. 

PROS:
Free flights- gym memberships at ANY basic gym for $25 a month—flights on 4 partner airlines—crewmember parking and security—meeting new people everyday—choosing your days off after a couple months—18 bases to potentially live at, you have the freedom to live almost anywhere if you’re willing to commute.

CONS: 
 Low pay=starting pay looks good but you only get paid per HOUR IN THE AIR. So if you technically work 12 hours that day but are only in the air for 4 of those hours…well, it’s hard not to feel jipped—you sacrifice a lot of time to work so a social life is pretty nonexistent—it’s a lifestyle change and it takes a few months to get used to—you are a part of a big corporation who will do whatever they have to to get flights out at the expense of you—year long probation that’s really strict—because of pilot shortages lots of flights are cancelled so using my benefits is actually pretty rare, I don’t make a lot of the flights I try. 

It's true that the benefits of flying free or at a greatly discounted fare are excellent perks when working in the airline industry.  However, with SkyWest these perks are difficult to use as your boarding priority makes it very difficult, unless you're flying on your own metal.  Very few regional flights go to great vacationing locations, so mainline employees and retirees can make travel stressful if you're looking for an exotic trip somewhere.  You may see a flight with plenty of seats the night before, but within a few hours of boarding, those seats can and do evaporate right before your very eyes.

SkyWest is in the "minor leagues" of aviation, along with a few other regional carriers.  It's great for an aspiring pilot wanting to accumulate flight hours, or an aviation mechanic looking to gain some experience before moving on to a mainline carrier, but that's about it.

If you're looking to work customer service or on the ramp as a baggage / ground crew, avoid SLC.  You'll have a grandiose interview experience given by the station hub manager, and if you're hired, you may never see this individual again.  There is no leadership in the SLC Customer Service Department.  Shift managers and supervisors are better skilled at writing team members up, than offering motivation and recognition for hard work.

SkyWest has guiding principles, but they're not followed at SLC.  

If you want to get your wings and become a pilot, then I can recommend SkyWest.  However, the ground operation is in serious need of a management overhaul, especially in Salt Lake City.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Flight attendant 24 salaries reported	$28.50 per hour
First officer 4 salaries reported	$93.29 per hour
Pilot 6 salaries reported	$125,600 per year
Aircraft mechanic 4 salaries reported	$31.06 per hour
Dispatcher 4 salaries reported	$22.75 per hour

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