After being out of the airline industry for nearly 10 years (and ending up back in my small hometown because of a recent world event), I get an email with a job posting for a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest Airlines. Excitedly, I filled out the application on a Sunday night, got a call on Monday morning, interviewed on Tuesday, and accepted the job on Wednesday.
As excited as I was for the job, there were things my excitement blinded me to.
If you’re interested in my experience as a regional flight attendant, check out my Comair Flight Attendant page!
What is a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest Airlines?
If you’ve been an airline passenger, you’ve seen those airline employees – at the baggage drop off, at the gate before you get on the plane, and on the ramp (where the planes are parked). Each of those positions at a larger airport are a job, but at smaller airports, it wouldn’t be feasible to hire for each position. That’s where the SkyWest Cross-Utilized Agent comes in to play.
Counter Agent Duties
The Counter Agent is the person you talk to if you need to drop off your checked bags, check in for an international flight, have any other special circumstances, or the one you’ll most likely talk to if you have questions. Nowadays, the Counter Agent doesn’t see as much action since those who don’t need to check in bags don’t see them. Since everyone charges for checked bags now, many will do what they can to not check one!
Counter agents need to be aware of a lot, but luckily, updated technology makes a lot of it easier. The hardest part of this job, however, is dealing with the passengers when delays occur. It’s especially tough when you aren’t at fault and you know just as much as the passengers do.
Gate Agent Duties
The Gate Agent is the one who is at the gate before the passenger gets on the plane. They double check passenger paperwork and communicate with the flight crew and ramp crew to make sure the flight gets out on time.
If you like making public announcements, you’ll appreciate this position more than the Counter Agent!
Ramp Agent Duties
The ramp agents are the ones doing all the work behind the scenes. At bigger airports, there may be other positions, like a baggage agent that will transport bags. Otherwise, the ramp agents are working the plane with everything non-passenger related. Unloading/loading bags, deicing the plane, hooking up air conditioning, and marshalling the plane in and out of the gate area are some of the duties of a ramp agent.
As this position is basically wholly outside, you’ll be dealing with the weather, so keep that in mind if you hate the heat, cold, snow, rain, etc.
All of these positions are filled by the Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest Airlines. Another additional duty they do is baggage claims. Locating and getting the passenger’s bags back to them is a task that is just as important as all the others because passengers love their bags!
Airports and other airlines might work things differently. A company like G2 Secure Staff will fill some of the roles, but do they get the same flight benefits as an employee of an airline? Most likely not, and that’s something to keep in mind if you want to work an airline job.
Positive Takeaways as a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest
- You get to learn a lot of different positions. Not everyone is meant to handle people, and not everyone is meant to handle bags. Experience is the mother of all teachers, and this is a good way to see where you would fit well.
- Even part-time, you get flight benefits. This was the major reason I went back to the airlines, and the thing I miss the most. Being a regional airline tied to multiple airlines, you could fly on many airlines (some airlines wouldn’t let me fly on them).
- No Parking Fees. Unlike larger airports, PIR had no parking fees.
- No Union. Some may think my experience with SkyWest would’ve made me a little more pro-union, but it didn’t. I know not every airline would change the employment status of their employees out of nowhere, and because of that, SkyWest lost me. That’s what they wanted. That’s what they got.
A company’s culture speaks volumes of how it treats its employees.
Negative Takeaways as a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest
- Yes, flight benefits, but…A couple days each week, there was only one flight out of town. When I was based in JFK and DTW, going somewhere was almost never a concern, but in a small airport, you have to almost plan a day of travel just to go anywhere.
For example, going to Denver everyday almost had a 2 hour layover minimum. There weren’t many flights that were heading out between 6:30 AM and 8:30 AM unless you were going to another hub. Going to Denver for the day was cool, but one can only do that so many times! - The pay was terrible. This was the main reason I didn’t take the job right away when I was offered it at the end of my interview. A whopping $10/hour for the responsibilities the job entailed almost seemed like a joke. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Each shift was only scheduled for 2 hours. On top of that, it wasn’t a guaranteed 2 hours – if you got the flight out way early and you had no training, there was nothing for you to do. I’m not sure if one was allowed to just sit there for 45 minutes after the flight went out, but some people did it (my time is worth way more than $10/hour). After I only worked for 1 hour and 15 minutes one morning (having to wake up at 5:00 AM), I started to wonder if this experience was worth it.
If the flight benefits made up for it, it might be a different story. United/SkyWest had pretty strict rules about not using your flight benefits to make money. Did that mean I couldn’t have a travel blog? Nothing in all of the training indicated I could.
What made this even harder was the fact that when Denver Air Connection started, they were paying $20/hour with a guaranteed 3 hour minimum. However, their flight benefits and support were almost nothing compared to what SkyWest had.
I was also in line to be promoted to Supervisor, but I was never informed as to how much of a raise it was, which didn’t sound like it was much. - Training was weird. This really could be either in the positive or the negative, but I’m putting it in the negative column because of the amount of time and money wasted. Flying under the United banner in PIR, we had to take a LOT of United computer-based training. A LOT of that (paid) training didn’t pertain to our station at all. For example, I had to take over an hour’s worth of initial pet training (checking in pets and how to handle them). However, in PIR, we didn’t take pets in the cargo hold, so that training was essentially worthless.
Now, an hour was only worth $10, but if you had 4 people taking that class each week, that’s $40/week, or $2,080/year. One other example is all of the hours of training I got about the larger planes that couldn’t even land at the airport since the runways were too small. - Seniority mattered. If you know me, I hate the idea of a seniority system being the priority in employee treatment. It didn’t matter if I was more capable, more willing, and more flexible for the job when it came to me bidding for shifts. All that mattered was that I was hired in June of 2021. However, since the perception was that I was doing absolutely nothing with my life other than working this $10/hour job, it was expected of me to fill in all the shifts that no one else wanted to work, and I got nothing extra for it.
To add on to the bidding, I hated the bidding system. We knew our flight schedules for at least a month out, but we barely would know what we were working up until about a week out. It was ridiculous.
- My flexibility meant nothing. As I stated, it was a decision of mine to put myself to this job, even though financially it was a stupid decision. However, getting nothing in return for it was kind of a bummer. I never got to bid for shifts before anyone above me in seniority, even though I was qualified for more and way more flexible. I never even got one “Incentive” paid shift (time and a half) the entire time I was there.
A Shameful Resignation
Key Lime Airlines, doing business as Denver Air Connection, won a bid through the government’s Essential Air Service (EAS) program which allows smaller airports to operate by paying an airline money to operate through the airport. SkyWest won the bid in 2019, but Denver Air Connection outbid them by $7,700,000.
When I got hired, I was informed that SkyWest was only guaranteed to fly to Pierre until mid-December 2021 (I was hired in June 2020). One of the most profitable times going through PIR is hunting season, so SkyWest was committed through then. They received no subsidy for SkyWest after Denver Air Connection started flying in June 2020.
However, there was a lot of misplaced enthusiasm over SkyWest staying past December.
SkyWest Pulls Out
We received word in October that SkyWest definitely was going to be pulling out on January 3rd. Then we were told we were getting a severance package of $250 and one month of flying benefits.
Shortly after receiving that news, I was told that because 3 other agents and myself were hired after June, we were all Temporary Ramp Agents, and since we were temporary, we were not entitled to the severance package.
This set me off on two levels:
1. We were doing *mostly* the same work as the more senior agents, yet we don’t get the same measly severance package? I say “mostly” because I was doing more than some of them. The one month of flight benefits was kind of a joke as well – one would have to drive at least 2.5 hours to get to another airport just to use those flight benefits. You also have to consider the fact that you’re flying on the bottom of the standby list as a furloughed employee. I suggested that we get one round trip ticket as a thank you, or the possibility of activating that one month of flight benefits at a later date, but heard nothing back about them.
2. I definitely would have never signed up for this job knowing it was a temporary position. If there was a chance it was “going to become” a temporary position, I would have definitely given it a lot more consideration before saying yes to the job.
I put a lot of time into being a Cross-Utilized agent and got nothing for it, but I was somewhat OK with it because I was planning on going career with it. Making myself available for a low wage, low hour position was really a stupid decision to make in the short term, but I was looking at the long term.
I’ve held a temporary position in the past, and after doing so, I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to ever do again. Yet, there I was in a temporary position because I was lied to about it.
What I Did Next
SkyWest isn’t unionized, but they do have a fake union. Each department has representation, and I wrote a pretty scathing, but very professional, letter to my representative. The representative didn’t even hear back to me – I heard back from his superior. I was told by him the Temporary Ramp Agents would be getting the severance package.
I was shocked that the change was made so fast, as I’m use to actual unions taking forever to do anything.
However, as a Temporary Ramp Agent, I found myself very upset with the fact that in the few months I had been there, I learned all aspects of being a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest. If I was never suppose to be a Cross-Utilized Agent, then why was I trained as one? Why was the job listing posted as a “Part-Time Cross-Utilized Agent” for SkyWest if it never was?
I also was upset about this because there were agents there that didn’t do nearly as much as I was doing, and they had been there for way longer than I had been. Why was I being paid the same as someone who was doing less than me, a Temporary Ramp Agent? Why was I put through Ground Security Coordinator training if I was just a Temporary Ramp Agent? And why was I trained to do all of these things in the Counter and Gate Agent positions if I was only just a Temporary Ramp Agent?
Unprofessionalism as a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest
I got assigned the Counter/Gate position one morning after being reclassified as a Temporary Ramp Agent and decided I was going to quit after that shift. I was just a Temporary Ramp Agent. Why was I being assigned to work the Counter and Gate? I had already brought up my concerns with working the Counter and Gate when other agents who had been there way longer than I had been were not working those positions, but that didn’t mean anything.
I made a poor decision and sent multiple texts to our group chat during one of my shifts (they were composed the day before and scheduled out). The response by the station manager, saying that I was told in my interview that it would be a temporary position if SkyWest pulls out (I definitely don’t recall ever hearing that), is what prompted me to quit without turning in a two weeks’ notice.
Each job I’ve resigned from I have always put in at least a two weeks’ notice. In fact, each time it was much longer than a two weeks’ notice because I’m sure finding a replacement takes longer than 2 weeks!
However, in this instance, I made the personal and unprofessional mistake of not turning in a notice, which means I’ll never be hired by SkyWest ever again. I regret it to this day, but I think after what I had been through since March 2020, I was over a lot of things, and it all boiled up to that point.
Future Endeavored
After I Future Endeavored SkyWest, I still wish them the best. There are some great people working for that airline, and I don’t want the company to fail because that would cause the good ones to fail. I thought I needed to share this story because anyone looking to become a Cross-Utilized Agent for SkyWest should know how they have treated employees, and should make sure they are not treated the same way in the future.
