SkyWest Airlines and United Airlines agreed to add another 20 Embraer E175 aircraft to the SkyWest fleet on March 3. The announcement stated that the partner-financed aircraft will be added throughout 2024 for a contract term of four years. 

“We’re delighted to continue enhancing our United partnership and pleased that we’re

able to deliver on the strong market demand,” said Chip Childs, President & CEO of

SkyWest.

SkyWest is the largest regional airline in the U.S. The airline serves 247 cities in 41 U.S. states, five Canadian provinces, and eight cities in Mexico. SkyWest carried 38.6 Million passengers in 2023. In the final quarter of 2023, 40 percent of SkyWest’s 177,000 departures were operated as United Express.

Its current fleet of 485 aircraft includes 237 E175s. The 20 aircraft included in this CPA are in addition to the purchase of 19 E175s SkyWest announced in the last quarter of 2023. By the end of 2026, SkyWest will fly a fleet of 278 of the Brazilian-made aircraft. The agreement represents an increase of over 8% in the number of SkyWest E175s and an increase of 4% in its overall fleet.

Neither SkyWest nor United clarified whether the additional aircraft would be used to expand into new markets or increase capacity on existing routes. Agreements between regional airlines and their mainline partners are governed by complex rules regarding the number of seats offered on the regional jets, often restricting the quantities of configurations within a single regional partner. SkyWest E175s are currently configured for 70 or 76 seats, depending on the scope of the agreements with their various partners, which include United, Delta, American, and Alaska Air. 

The new United agreement comes as an ongoing pilot shortage continues to affect the airline industry from top to bottom. Indeed, the partner-financed aspect of the new agreement may indicate that United is seeking new ways to use aircraft it is financially responsible for that have yet to be deployed in other areas. For example, United has twice made potential agreements with Mesa Airlines involving E175s, ultimately resulting in the aircraft being taken out of service. 

In December 2022, for example, American Airlines announced that it would be ending its 30-year partnership with Mesa as it refused to absorb the increase in pay for Mesa’s pilots, which was precipitated by American raising pilot pay at its wholly owned subsidiaries Piedmont, PSA, and Envoy. Both wage hikes were attributed to the increased difficulty of retaining pilots at the regionals as the major airlines poached their ranks to fill their own needs.

Rather than incur the high costs of retraining their CRJ900 pilots to fly the E175s, Mesa elected to swap 38 E175s for the same number of CRJ900s. The E175s were parked as a result. The announcements from SkyWest and United did not state that the new E175s once belonged to Mesa. However, it has long been rumored that the parked former Mesa aircraft are available. 

SkyWest Airlines’ fleet of aircraft is over twice the size of its nearest regional rival, Republic Airlines. Republic’s fleet of E175s, which it flies exclusively, is the only E175 fleet larger than SkyWest’s. The 20 new aircraft will be configured in three classes: First, Economy Plus, and Economy.