Same Job. Same Logo. Different Pay.
SkyWest flies for United, Delta, American and Alaska under their names. Here's how that deal works, who it pays, and why the regional pay tier has to change.
A passenger boarding a SkyWest flight sees a United, Delta, American or Alaska logo on the jet, the ticket and the boarding pass. What they don't see is that the Flight Attendant welcoming them aboard is paid on a different, lower scale than the crew on the mainline jet at the next gate.
That gap isn't an accident, and it isn't about the work. It's built into how the regional airline business runs. Once you see how the pieces fit together, it's clear why SkyWest management fights so hard to keep a union out, and why SkyWest Flight Attendants are the ones who can change it.
How the regional model works
Almost every SkyWest flight is sold as a Delta Connection, United Express, American Eagle or Alaska flight. The deal behind most of that flying is called a capacity purchase agreement. In plain terms, the mainline airline rents SkyWest's whole operation: the airplanes and the people who fly them.
The mainline airline picks the routes and the schedule, sells the tickets, sets the fares and keeps the ticket money. SkyWest gets a set fee for each block hour, each departure and each airplane it keeps flying. And the mainline partner pays for the fuel, the landing fees and the airport rent. SkyWest's own filings say the partners carry the risk when fuel prices swing.
- Picks the routes and schedule
- Sells the tickets and keeps the fares
- Pays for fuel, landing fees and airport rent
- Carries the risk when fuel prices jump
- Supplies the airplanes
- Supplies the pilots, Flight Attendants and mechanics
- Gets a set rate per block hour, departure and airplane
- Keeps whatever it doesn't spend
Think about what that leaves. Fuel, one of an airline's biggest bills, is off SkyWest's books on contract flying. The rates are set in advance. So one of the main ways SkyWest makes more money on a contract is by spending less on the people who operate it.
The mainlines can't run without regionals
Regional flying isn't a side business. According to the Regional Airline Association's 2026 report, regional airlines flew more than a third of all scheduled passenger departures in the U.S. last year. At 434 airports, a regional airline is the only scheduled passenger service there is.
Those flights feed the mainline hubs. SkyWest crews work out of hubs across the country, including Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. At several of them, like Los Angeles and Chicago, SkyWest flies for more than one mainline partner at the same time. A passenger from a small city rides a SkyWest jet into one of those hubs, then connects to a mainline flight. Take the regional flying away and the network shrinks. During the pilot shortage, the Regional Airline Association found that more than three out of four U.S. airports had lost or seen cuts to their air service.
SkyWest knows how much its partners need it, too. In 2025, its contracts with Delta and United alone brought in about 70% of SkyWest's revenue.
The pitch: a workforce without a national union
So if the partners pay for fuel and set the routes, how does SkyWest win more flying? By being the cheapest, most predictable option. And SkyWest's own words show that keeping a national union out is part of the pitch.
"Representation by a national union may limit our ability to have open communications with our employees, negatively impact our company culture and deter our ability to amend our compensation packages for market conditions…"
"A national union soliciting to represent our employees may represent employees at mainline carriers or other regional airlines and may have conflicting interests with those of our employees or SkyWest."
SkyWest, Inc. annual report (Form 10-K) for 2024, risk factors.Read that second line again. Management's worry is that a union representing mainline and regional Flight Attendants would want SkyWest Flight Attendants paid more like them. From where we sit, that isn't a conflict. That's the point.
Then, at the May 2026 shareholder meeting, a shareholder proposal asked SkyWest to have an independent review of how it treats the right to organize. CEO Chip Childs answered that "our four major airline partners recognize the value of SkyWest's unique culture." The proposal didn't pass. When management says "culture" to investors and partners, it's describing a workforce with no national union, and the lower costs that come with it. SIA, which SkyWest funds, is part of how management keeps it that way.
Every partner already flies with union regional crews
Here's what management leaves out. United, Delta, American and Alaska all already buy regional flying from airlines whose Flight Attendants are represented by AFA. In most cases the partner owns that regional outright. These are the regional crews, working the same kind of flying we do.
Those airlines keep flying for their partners. GoJet Flight Attendants ratified a new AFA contract in 2025 and still fly United Express. Envoy, PSA and Piedmont Flight Attendants won improvements in the middle of their contracts in 2022 and still fly American Eagle. A union doesn't cost a regional airline its partners. It costs management the ability to set pay on its own.
The regional pay tier
Now look at what that "culture" is worth to the people working the flights. Here's what a Flight Attendant earns per hour at SkyWest's three biggest partners, next to SkyWest. United and American Flight Attendants have union contracts. Delta Flight Attendants don't, and that matters, as you'll see below the chart.
A first-year SkyWest Flight Attendant working a United Express flight makes about $8 an hour less than a first-year United Flight Attendant. Over a 900-hour year, that's about $7,100. Near the top of the scale, the gap grows to more than $30,000 a year.
Same FAA safety training. Same passengers. Same logo on the tail. The only real difference is which company signs the paycheck. AFA found that Mesa Flight Attendants flying United Express were paid about 45% less on average than United's own crews.
"There is absolutely NO reason FAs should be paid less working at a regional vs mainline… FAs are 50 pax to 1 regardless of what aircraft type, so that is the same exact workload and same exact responsibility. We should be making the same per hour."
A SkyWest Flight Attendant, Denver base · Campaign survey*Delta's numbers come with a catch. Delta management runs the same union-avoidance playbook as SkyWest's, and its pay tracks the union contracts at United and American. With no contract, Delta Flight Attendants have nothing to enforce. Management can rewrite work rules, cut what it handed out and discipline without due process, the same as here. That's why Delta Flight Attendants are organizing with AFA too, pushing through a fierce union-avoidance campaign from their own management. A rate that can be clawed back behind the scenes is there for appearances. A contract is the real bar.
The work is the same. The pay should be too.
What closing the gap would cost
Management will say higher pay would cost SkyWest its contracts. Look at the math. An E175 carries 76 passengers and two Flight Attendants. SkyWest filled about 81% of its seats last quarter.
Even a $15-an-hour raise works out to less than 50 cents per passenger for each hour in the air. The partners paying for it can afford it. Delta reported $5 billion in net income for 2025. United reported more than $3 billion.
And there's already a precedent. When pilots were hard to find in 2022, SkyWest raised pilot pay. By early 2023, SkyWest said it had secured amendments under most of its flying contracts so its partners would pay more to cover the new pilot scales. When the pressure was real, the money showed up. SkyWest Flight Attendants can create that pressure, too.
Why the pay tier has to change
The regional pay tier runs on one assumption: that regional Flight Attendants will accept less for the same job. Every year it holds, it sets the floor for the next group of new hires, at SkyWest and everywhere else.
"Enough to get out of poverty wages and keep up with inflation."
Salt Lake City base, asked what raise they want"Equal to the highest paid airline (that includes mainline)."
Seattle base, asked the same question"We should be making a lot more money for all the hard work that we put in. I've been doing this 17 years."
Phoenix baseSkyWest Flight Attendants have been saying it for years. A contract is how it finally gets written down.
We can change that. SkyWest has more Flight Attendants than any other regional airline. If the biggest group in the industry wins a real contract, every other regional has to keep up. And the AFA regional crews already flying for our partners prove a union contract doesn't cost an airline its flying.
And we won't be bargaining alone. Airline managements compare notes all the time through their trade groups, Airlines for America and the Regional Airline Association, working together on costs, labor and lobbying. Why shouldn't we? When SkyWest Flight Attendants win our union, we lock arms with the AFA Flight Attendants at GoJet, Endeavor, Envoy, PSA, Piedmont, Horizon and the other regionals, and we raise the bar together. Every contract one of us wins becomes the starting point for the next.
- Partners pay for fuel, SkyWest saves on people
- Pay set by management, changed when it chooses
- About $8 an hour less in year one, and more after that
- SkyWest Flight Attendants negotiate pay that matches the work
- Raises locked in, with a vote on every deal
- Rates partners must plan for, like they did for pilots
- Standing with AFA Flight Attendants at the other regionals
Change the regional tier.
It starts with SkyWest Flight Attendants signing authorization cards. Your information is not public, and privacy is our first priority.
Where this comes from: SkyWest, Inc.'s annual reports (Form 10-K) for 2024 and 2025, its fourth quarter 2022 and third quarter 2026 results, and the transcript of its May 2026 annual shareholder meeting; the Regional Airline Association's 2026 annual report as reported by Aviation Week; AFA announcements on GoJet and Mesa; published and reported 2026 pay scales for United, Delta and American; SkyWest's Flight Attendant job postings; Delta's and United's 2025 results; and the campaign's 2022 survey of SkyWest Flight Attendants, with quotes shared by base only. This piece was prepared with all available information, and corrections are welcome at timetofly@ooitstime.com.
