Originally Posted by
mountaingoat
Does anyone at Horizon have an actual credible source for what is being talked about there, besides what the Union put out in their short email? Aircraft type? Number of Airplanes? ( No Offense to new hires in ground school as an information source but.... yeah) So far this sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors and no real plan. A lot of hope, but no real substance or action. Talk is cheap and finance guys don't go buy a large amount of aircraft without knowing all of the answers above. At worst, a flyer to get concessions at Horizon to see if they will bite (Horizon can only get jets if you get in the race to the bottom)
Has management given any plan like the one they gave the Alaska pilots back in 2000? That plan mapped out the future at Alaska including aircraft and routes?
I find it hard to believe that Alaska will invest in Horizon and risk their relationship with Mainline Pilots at a time of record profits and a fight in SEA with Delta.
Wasn't the plan at Horizon just a few years ago to capture all the cost efficiencies of single fleet? Which is why they opened 5 bases? Did Senior Air Group leadership all of a sudden change their mind and why hasn't anything been told to the Alaska Pilot Group?
Also, there are many other Low Ball CPA carriers that would trip all over themselves to get E-190/195 or C series. SkyWest has 100 MRJs on order and Republic has 40 C-series on order
This has all the hallmarks of a free for all race to the bottom.
- No plan whatsoever has been presented. No hint on type, number, routes, anything.
- The 6 bases are under review. It was announced that one meeting was held, but no details. Another meeting was supposed to be happening in the immediate future. It's possible that the result of these meetings will be one or more base closures.
We're not really sure what the business plan is at the moment. It's kind of hard to tell. They've been trying to cut costs and reap the financial benefits of the single fleet for a while now... and they've repeatedly fallen short of their 10% profit margin target, and they're going backwards. So it seems like they may be shifting away from that idea.
The only thing certain at the moment is that if they want Horizon to be sustainably profitable, the status quo isn't going to do it. Eventually either the increasing maintenance costs of the Q400 or their staffing issues due to no real plan for the future will cause some problems. Something needs to happen if they want to keep this place functioning remotely well.
Regarding the MRJ's and C-series that other companies have on order... If Alaska wouldn't want to risk their relations with their mainline pilot group by giving QX larger jets, giving those same jets to a non-Air Group partner wouldn't be any better...