SkyWest Flight Attendant: pay, training, bases and life on the line.
The complete picture of the job, written by SkyWest Flight Attendants who have flown it for years. We love this airline because of the people who make it, and we want it to be even better. Real pay figures from the company's own scale, what training is like, where you'll be based, and what we're doing through our SkyWest AFA campaign to make this a better place to work.
The job in four numbers.
Source: SkyWest Airlines Flight Attendant Career Guide, pay scale as of January 1, 2026. Per diem is $2.25 for every hour on duty away from base.
See what a month actually pays.
SkyWest pays per flight hour, block to block, plus boarding pay for each completed boarding. Move the sliders. The math uses the company's published 2026 scale.
Reserve Flight Attendants typically fly 76–120 hours a month depending on operational need. Boarding pay above the 0–4 year rates is estimated at 25% of the flight-hour rate, which is how the company's published examples work out.
Estimate only. Excludes holiday premiums, taxes, benefits deductions and the $5 per paycheck uniform maintenance allowance. Your actual schedule, base and bid period set the real number.
Full SkyWest Flight Attendant pay scale, 2026
| Years of service | Per flight hour |
|---|
Figures are set by SkyWest and can be changed by SkyWest. There is no contract behind this scale, which is the subject of the second half of this page.
What SkyWest asks before you apply.
The company's own readiness checklist, in plain terms.
- ✓Willing to relocate to any of SkyWest's 20 crew domiciles.
- ✓Able to attend 35 days of paid training in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- ✓Able to open exits and close aircraft doors weighing up to 45 pounds, and push or pull beverage carts weighing up to 250 pounds.
- ✓Able to provide leadership, direction and assistance in emergencies and everyday situations.
- ✓Willing to wear the SkyWest uniform per the appearance and uniform manual.
- ✓Ready for a rotating schedule with holidays, weekends and duty days of up to 16 hours.
Source: SkyWest Airlines Flight Attendant Career Guide. Applications go through skywest.com/careers; SkyWest holds group interviews in cities around the country.
From the hangar to the line.
Three phases of training, then the longest probation in the industry. Here is each one, with what your coworkers have waiting for you.
Initial training, Salt Lake City
35 consecutive days with three non-consecutive days off, up to 10 hours a day, at the SkyWest hangar. Paid at 65 flight hours, roughly $1,900 for the whole period, with no per diem. Hotel and shuttle are provided if you live more than 40 miles away.
UsTraining will bring up the union before you've had a chance to ask about it. The facts are waiting for you here, from coworkers with nothing to sell you.
Initial Operating Experience
Your first flights with passengers. If you're relocating, you get four days to move to your assigned domicile, with up to three hotel nights there. After IOE you're on a reserve schedule at your base.
UsLife Line pairs new hires with experienced SkyWest Flight Attendants for base, bidding and probation questions.
Initial Line Check, then probation
Thirty to 90 days after IOE comes a line check you must pass. Then a 12-month probation, extendable at management's discretion. During probation, pay, schedule and base changes are limited.
UsA contract can shorten probation, as AFA has negotiated at other airlines, and protect you fully the day it ends. That is one of the improvements our campaign is working toward.
Whose plane you'll be on.
SkyWest is the largest regional airline in the United States and the largest group of regional Flight Attendants in the country. You'll fly from one of 20 crew domiciles under four different mainline brands: Delta Connection, United Express, American Eagle and Alaska Airlines. Passengers rarely know a partner carrier is operating their flight.
More legs, more boardings.
- Short regional legs mean several boardings a day, and boarding pay adds up.
- Quick turns, long walks between gates, and the stamina the career guide mentions.
- SkyWest Flight Attendants are now required to work flights for more than one mainline partner in the same trip, switching service standards, announcements and procedures mid-pairing. Shifting gears like that is more work, and it isn't paid as such.
- That change was made unilaterally by the company, with no limits and no added pay. With a union it would have been negotiated with us, and the extra work priced in.
The regional tier.
- You'll do the same job as the mainline Flight Attendant on the next gate, on a flight branded as their airline, for far less.
- Ending that tier is one reason SkyWest Flight Attendants are organizing. See Flight Facts.
What you'll hear about the union, and who it serves.
From training onward, management will tell you SkyWest is proudly "union-free," that SIA already represents you, and that a union is an outsider. It is delivered warmly, by people you'll like, and it is backed by paid consultants whose job is to settle the question before you've asked it. Tap each line.
"We're a union-free family."
A family doesn't need you to sign away your voice. "Union-free" means management sets pay, schedules and work rules alone and answers to no independent process when it disciplines or terminates a Flight Attendant. The warmth is a performance. The power it protects is real.
"SIA already represents you."
SIA is funded and controlled by SkyWest, which pays its officers while they're off the line. It has never been elected by Flight Attendants, never certified as a bargaining representative, and cannot negotiate a binding contract. Management negotiating with itself is not representation.
"Unions just take your dues."
No SkyWest Flight Attendant pays a dollar until we approve our first contract, and we only approve one whose gains far outweigh the cost. Dues keep the union independent of the company; that independence is the point.
"Look how long negotiations take elsewhere."
Negotiations take long because management stalls once workers are organized. Those long fights are what have raised the bar for Flight Attendants everywhere, and SkyWest quietly copies the wins to argue no union is needed.
Why we're telling you this: we love our company. It is made up of great people, and that is exactly why we want it to be better. But management holds every card in this relationship, and anti-union messaging is how it keeps them. We're your coworkers. We've been here a long time, and we're using what we've learned to look out for you. If the need for a union isn't obvious yet, it will be once you've flown a few months. We'd rather you hear it from us first.
Everything above is policy. None of it is a contract.
Every number on this page is set by management alone, changed at its discretion, and followed or set aside whenever it suits the company. Our campaign exists to change that: not by asking nicely for better policy, but by negotiating an enforceable contract built on SkyWest Flight Attendants' own priorities. Here is the difference.
Management decides. No one can hold them to it.
- Pay, schedules, reserve rules and commuter arrangements can change on a memo. Multi-partner trips arrived that way, with no limits and no compensation attached.
- Loose work rules let SkyWest claw back unpaid time from your day, on the ground and between flights. With no contract and no enforcement mechanism, that is easy to do and nothing stops it.
- Boarding pay was added, but on a temporary basis, not locked into a contract and without the protections a contract carries.
- No enforceable just-cause standard. There is an "appeal" step written into the policy manual and staged by SkyWest and SIA, but the company writes the rules, sits in judgment and decides the outcome, with no independent arbitrator. Too many coworkers have gone through it in good faith and been denied anything resembling due process. It exists so that discipline looks fair, not so that it is. AFA's federal lawsuit against SkyWest cites the lack of a real mechanism for arbitrating terminations.
- SIA, the SkyWest Inflight Association, is funded and controlled by management and cannot negotiate a binding contract.
Negotiated on our priorities. Backed by law.
- Pay, work rules and benefits management cannot change on its own.
- Legal standing to challenge unfair discipline and termination: just cause, representation and a grievance process.
- Scheduling, reserve and commuter rules we negotiate and can enforce. A change like multi-partner trips would come with limits and pay, agreed with us first.
- Leaders we elect from our own ranks. Zero dues until we approve our first contract.
- Our Rights · AFA Successes · FAQs
Supporting a union is your legal right under the Railway Labor Act. It is illegal for SkyWest to retaliate against you for it, and AFA Legal is already holding SkyWest management accountable in court for past interference.
Quick answers.
How much does a SkyWest Flight Attendant make?
New hires earn $30.32 per flight hour plus $7.58 per completed boarding, on a 76-hour monthly reserve guarantee. The company's own example for an 80-hour month with 48 boardings comes to about $2,789 before per diem, or roughly $33,500 a year. The scale tops out at $50.21 per hour after 25 years.
Is SkyWest Flight Attendant training paid?
Yes, at 65 flight hours for the 35-day program, about $1,900 in total, with no per diem or holiday pay during training. Hotel and a shuttle are provided for trainees who live more than 40 miles from the Salt Lake City training facility.
Where are SkyWest Flight Attendants based?
SkyWest has 20 crew domiciles, and new hires must be willing to relocate to any of them. Assignments come at the end of initial training, with four days to relocate before IOE.
How long is probation at SkyWest?
Twelve months, the longest in the industry, and management can extend it at its sole discretion. A contract can shorten probation, as AFA has negotiated at other airlines.
Do SkyWest Flight Attendants have a union?
Not yet. SkyWest Flight Attendants are organizing their own union with the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the union that represents more than 50,000 Flight Attendants at 20 airlines. The campaign was started by SkyWest Flight Attendants, is run by them today, and is how we're bringing real improvements to life on the line: an enforceable contract, just-cause protection and leaders we elect. SIA, the company's in-house association, is funded and controlled by management and has never been certified as a bargaining representative.
Will anyone know if I support the union?
Only if you tell them. Card information is not public, and privacy and security are the campaign's top priority. Supporting a union is protected by federal law, and it is illegal for SkyWest to retaliate against you for it.
If you're still in training or waiting on a class date, you can request a card now and keep it for when you start flying. Only active Flight Attendants can sign, and there's no rush.
We want you here. And we want you to last.
Everything on this page comes from coworkers who love this airline for the people in it, have done the job for years, and decided the next generation deserves better than we got. The company will tell you who your friends are. We'd rather show you.
Only active Flight Attendants can sign a card, so request yours now and keep it somewhere safe for the day you finish training and start flying. In the meantime you'll hear from us, not the company.
We know the fear is real. Many of us felt it too. Your request stays between you and us; card information is never public, and your right to support a union is protected by federal law. Nobody will know unless you choose to tell them.
