Understand any stock in simple English
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SkyWest, Inc.
SkyWest operates regional airlines that fly smaller planes on short routes for big airlines like United, Delta, and American.
SkyWest is a regional airline, but you almost never buy a ticket from it directly. Instead, it flies small planes on short routes under the names of the big airlines — the ones printed on the side of the plane and on your boarding pass. So when you board a United Express or Delta Connection flight to a smaller city, there's a decent chance the plane is owned and flown by SkyWest.
Here's how the money works. The big airlines pay SkyWest a fixed fee to operate those flights, usually under multi-year contracts. That arrangement protects SkyWest from the ups and downs of ticket prices and fuel costs — it gets paid for flying the schedule, not for filling every seat. It also means SkyWest's fate is tied to a handful of very large customers: United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines. Losing one of those contracts would hurt far more than a bad travel season. SkyWest runs one of the largest regional fleets in the world, with hundreds of aircraft, and it is based in St. George, Utah. The regional airline industry has shrunk over the years as big carriers consolidated their partners, leaving SkyWest as one of the few large independent players — a scale advantage that makes it hard to replace. But there's a catch: regional flying is a tough, thin-margin business, and the big airlines hold most of the bargaining power.
Airlines also face a persistent problem: finding enough pilots. Regional carriers historically paid far less than the major airlines, and a pilot shortage that hit hard after 2020 forced SkyWest and its peers to raise pay and park planes they couldn't staff. SkyWest has responded by working on its own pilot pipeline and by owning more of its fleet outright, which gives it flexibility to move planes between contracts. It's a reminder that in this business, the scarce resource isn't passengers — it's the people and planes needed to fly them.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026