Our Work Builds the Profit. Here's Who Cashes In.
SkyWest has spent more than half a billion dollars buying back its own stock since 2023. Here's how that works, who it pays, and why wanting a contract isn't selfish at all.
Every time SkyWest Flight Attendants talk about a contract, someone says we're asking for too much. So let's look at where the money our work helps earn actually goes.
We care about this company. The Flight Attendants, pilots, mechanics and agents who keep it moving every day are the reason SkyWest makes money, and that's exactly why it matters who decides what happens to that money once it's made.
Right now, a big share of it goes into something called a stock buyback. It sounds technical, but it's simple. And once you see how it works, you'll understand why a one-time $3 an hour felt so small.
Half a billion dollars, and counting
In May 2023, SkyWest's board approved $250 million for the company to buy back its own stock. In May 2025, the board added another $250 million. This July, with about $63 million left, it added $250 million more.
By Sept. 30, 2026, SkyWest had spent about $512 million buying its own shares. This year alone, it spent $75 million every quarter, $225 million in nine months, and it still has $238 million ready to go.
Spread across the more than 5,000 SkyWest Flight Attendants, the buybacks since 2023 come to about $100,000 for each of us. The productivity payout comes to about $2,700.
What a buyback actually does
A buyback doesn't build anything. It doesn't add an airplane, a crew room or a dollar to anyone's paycheck. It works like this.
Look at SkyWest's last quarter. Profit was up 2.7% from a year earlier. Earnings per share were up 9.6%, more than three times as fast. Most of the gap is the buybacks: there were 6.2% fewer shares splitting the profit.
Nothing about the airline got 9.6% better. The profit just got split fewer ways.
Who's holding the stock
SkyWest's top executives earn a salary, but most of their pay comes in SkyWest stock that vests over time. Stock is worth more when the share price is up, and buybacks are one of the ways a company pushes that price up.
Here's what that looked like in 2025, from SkyWest's own filing with the SEC. CEO Chip Childs drew a salary of $595,000, and the company reported his total pay at about $6.7 million. But stock that vested for him that year was worth $19.9 million when it landed.
Together, those four executives had about $37.8 million in SkyWest stock vest in one year. The CEO's share alone is about 340 years of pay for the median SkyWest employee.
We're not saying anyone broke a rule. That's the part that should bother every SkyWest Flight Attendant. All of this is legal, and it wasn't always.
This used to be treated as stock manipulation
For most of the last century, a company buying up its own shares on the open market risked being charged with manipulating its stock price. Most companies stayed away from it.
That changed in 1982. The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule, Rule 10b-18, that gives companies a "safe harbor" from manipulation charges as long as they follow a few conditions on how and when they buy. Buybacks took off from there, and today they're one of the main ways big companies spend their profits.
- Buying back stock could bring manipulation charges
- Most companies stayed away from it
- Companies rarely spent their profit this way
- A "safe harbor" rule protects buybacks
- SkyWest has spent about $512 million since 2023
- Executives paid in stock gain the most
A rule change made this normal. A contract is how working people push back.
So is wanting a contract selfish?
No. Look at who already has a seat at the table where the profit gets divided. SkyWest's board approves the buybacks, and a committee of that board sets executive pay. SkyWest Flight Attendants aren't in that room. We get whatever management decides to hand out.
Wanting a say in how our work gets paid isn't selfish. It's fair.
Asking for a contract isn't asking SkyWest to go broke. A company that can spend $75 million a quarter on its own stock can afford to sit down with the people who fly its airplanes. The money is there. Right now, the people who earn it just don't get to weigh in on where it goes.
Some of us worry that higher pay could cost SkyWest flying with its mainline partners. That fear is real, and management counts on it. But when regional pilots were in short supply, the mainline carriers came up with the money to raise regional pilot pay. Regionals aren't only about being cheap, and Flight Attendants don't have to stay cheap to keep SkyWest flying.
And it's bigger than us. No regional airline in the country is bigger than SkyWest, and no regional Flight Attendant group is bigger than ours. Management works hard to keep regional pay low, because every dollar held back there is a dollar that can go to buybacks instead. When SkyWest Flight Attendants bargain a real contract, we raise the bar for every regional Flight Attendant in the industry.
- The board approves another $250 million for buybacks
- A board committee sets executive pay
- Flight Attendants get what management decides
- SkyWest Flight Attendants bargain pay and work rules
- Raises are locked in, and we vote on the deal
- Our own legal department when management breaks it
Want to dig deeper? Flight Facts tracks where SkyWest's money goes, and We'll Take the $3 breaks down the productivity payout line by line.
Get your seat at the table.
Executives already have one. Signing your authorization card is how SkyWest Flight Attendants get ours. Your information is not public, and privacy is our first priority.
Where these numbers come from: SkyWest, Inc.'s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, its third quarter 2026 earnings release and call, its May 2025 and July 2026 buyback announcements, its 2026 proxy statement (2025 pay, stock vested and the CEO pay ratio), and the executives' July 2026 SEC Form 4 filings. The 1982 history comes from the SEC's Rule 10b-18 adopting release and the Congressional Research Service report "Stock Buybacks: Background and Reform Proposals." This piece was prepared with all available information, and corrections are welcome at timetofly@ooitstime.com.
