After reading several reports on here about Skywest, I had to agree and decided writing them up also, so that people will know what they might be in for if they work for the company in Denver.
I started working for Skywest 6 years ago and was there for 6 months. The work environment was so bad, I finally quit at that point. Now to be fair to the company, the flight benefits ARE AMAZING. That is the best reason to work there.
That being said, in my 6 months with Skywest, I have never seen a company run so poorly. Because the pay is so low, everyone is overworked. Because the company was so cheap, they would not allow overtime, so people would have to take up extra shifts to get more hours.in this manner, Skywest would skirt past the federal overtime laws.
The managers would poorly educated and meanspirited. Of course there were some good people, but generally speaking, if an employee rubbed them the wrong way, they did everything they could to make that person's life miserable. I've never seen so many personnel violations. It was amazing people didn't sue the company for the harassment they constantly received from whatever ramp manager/shift manager/cs manager/lead manager/cs manager/etc that didn't like them. To call it a hostile work environment would be putting it lightly. The ineptitude of one CS manager was so bad, in one particularly bad 2 month period, the poor Customer Service agents had to deal with a new work schedule EIGHT times. This interrupted the life of every single CS agent in Denver. A typical schedule should have lasted at least 3 months! Imagine the headaches this man caused for anyone who had children, was taking classes, had to work a second job, etc.
Unsanitary -
The employees that had to clean out the airplane lavartories were forced to use inadequate and broken equipment. I personally saw on MANY occasions, human waste pooring out on the poor employee that was trying to empty a plane because the hose leaked/had bad connections, etc. Of course, company policy was that if an employee tagged a piece of equipment as broken, it could not be used until it was repaired or replaced. But the problem was that as soon as someone tagged it, someone else would come sign it as being fixed. And if an employee complained about this, they would end up on the bad side of the managers, who would watch them like a dog, harassing them, looking for anything to write them up on.
Since employees pay is so inadequate, they would come to work sick - getting other workers sick. There was a pink eye epidemic going around because one guy KEPT COMING TO WORK DAY AFTER DAY AND THE MANAGERS REFUSED TO SEND HIM HOME. When the employee was confronted by other workers, he freaked out and then ran to the managers. The other workers were immediately written up for supposedly "causing a fight."
As stated before, the flight benefits are tremendous. The problem is, very few employees got to take advantage of them because the pay is too low. They had to work every day and had no time to use them. Many had to have second jobs to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Skywest was one of the few airlines turning a profit - and a VERY good one at that. This, coupled with harassment from managers or anyone else with any power made for a terrible work environment. The managers were also inadequately compensated - this may have been why they abused their power so much - to make up for the lack of pay. Most of them only made. 50cents more an hour than the people they bossed around.
I was lucky, I had another job that paid well and only worked there for the flight benefits. And I used them alot. But even that was not worth having to put up with working there. It was terrible. I happily quit. I felt so sorry for those employees that didn't have other options. That had to go to work every day dreading going. That left work every day crying.
I have several close friends that have worked there over the years, and unfortunately, even with different managers leaving or getting fired, the old practices are still mostly in place - even six years later.
If you don't need the job for money, and are very good at ignoring bad things, and you love to fly, it would maybe be worth working there. Also, if you are looking for a place where you'll have a high chance of being able to sue for sexual harassment/hostile work environment/workplace discrimination, then this may be the place for you. From day one, bring a notebook and pen with you to work and DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.
Otherwise, I would recommend steering clear.
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