SkyWest and United Airlines have announced an agreement to add another 20 Embraer E175 aircraft to the SkyWest fleet. The March 3 announcement stated that the partner-financed aircraft will be added over the course of 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. In 2023,  SkyWest carried a total of 38.6 Million passengers. In the final quarter of 2023, 40 percent of the airlines 177,000 departures were operated as United Express.

The SkyWest fleet currently consists of 485 aircraft. Of which, 237 are Embrare E175s. The 20 aircraft included in this CPA (capacity purchase agreement) are in addition to the purchase of 19 E175s that the airline announced it would purchase 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 the carrier's overall fleet. Neither SkyWest nor United Airlines have made it clear whether the additional aircraft would be used for expansion into new markets, or to 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 regional jets. This often restricts the number of aircraft configurations within a single regional airline partner. SkyWest Embrare 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 Airlines. 

The new SkyWest-United Airlines agreement was made as the 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 the aircraft it is financially responsible for. Aircrafts that have not been deployed on other routes. United has made two potential agreements with Mesa Airlines involving E175s that ultimately resulted in a few aircraft being taken out of service. 

In relation to the pilot shortage,  American Airlines announced that it would be ending its 30-year partnership with Mesa Airlines, as the company refused to absorb an increase in pay for Mesa Airlines pilots, which was precipitated by American raising pilot salaries at its wholly owned subsidiaries of Piedmont, PSA, and Envoy. 

Both wage hikes were attributed to the increased difficulty of retaining pilots at the regional airlines 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 their E175s, Mesa Airlines elected to swap out 38 Embrare E175s for the same number of CRJ900s. As a result, these E175s were parked. The announcements from SkyWest and United did not state that the new E175s are those once belonging to Mesa Airlines. However, it has been long been rumored that the parked aircraft were available.  

SkWest Airlines’ fleet of aircraft is over twice the size of its nearest regional rival, Republic Airlines. The 20 new aircraft will be configured in three classes: First, Economy Plus, and Economy.