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Old 06-29-2017, 07:06 PM
  #1892  
DrainTheSwamp
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Joined APC: Jan 2017
Posts: 62
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From the CEO. Why would anyone come here.

From Dave Campbell, president and CEO:

Horizon team –



Being in the airline business, you and I know all too well that traveling often means packing plenty of patience. Things can change on a dime or plans just go horribly wrong. How you choose to respond determines the outcome. For Horizon’s most recent journey that began with Commit to Compete, June will go down as our “bump in the road” – our moment when things got too far off track, and now, we must decide how to recover and still get where we’re trying to go.

To put this month in perspective, we have canceled more than 318 flights because we didn’t have enough pilots to fly our planes. Compare that to only four such cancellations last June. It’s been frustrating to experience and disappointing to see on paper. This is difficult for all of us, especially those who deal directly with our guests. It’s not fair to them and certainly not to you. We can do better; and ultimately, we will. But doing better means making some difficult choices, and one of them involves our summer schedule.

Between August 4 and September 3, we plan to cancel lines of flying, impacting nearly 17,000 guests. This gives us time to stabilize our operation and preserve our reputation as an airline people can count on. I know you have a lot of questions and I’m sure one of them is how we got here, especially considering our recent amended agreement with the pilots’ union. While the amendment has initially shown success in helping us fill pilot classes for the first time in many months, the regional industry’s shortage of pilots, coupled with our company’s unprecedented growth, created a perfect storm of issues, which we are working hard to resolve.

Our immediate plans include the following actions:

We have established a war room to daily manage potential cancellations.
We are increasing pilot reserves to account for the variation in attrition. These reserves will help us better fly the schedule and reduce the impact on guests.
Flight Ops Training is working to enhance their ability to forecast training needs through better tools and processes.
Our management pilots are out flying the line to help mitigate the current staffing shortfall.
We are offering 200% premium pay to encourage more pilots to pick up open time.
Our Flight Ops teams are tightening their staffing models to compensate for unfilled classes. Additionally, we’re increasing our check airmen numbers from 19 to 34.
We continue to enhance our recruitment programs to attract more pilots. We’ve increased the number of recruiters we have on staff from two to six and we continue to build our partnerships with aviation schools.
Meanwhile, we will work hard to accommodate all our guests as quickly as possible.

As we move into July, let’s stick to what we do best: owning safety and being kind-hearted. Remember, you are empowered to stop a flight if you feel it’s unsafe. And with warm weather, ATC delays and operational disruptions, it’s tempting to drift away from our values. Kindness to our guests and to each other will always make us shine.

Looking further ahead, we’re studying the upcoming fall and winter schedules, as well, to ensure we have schedules that we can reliably operate.

Again, I know this change coming in August is not what we had in mind when we started down this road to expand. But it’s absolutely the right thing to do while we get back on track. And if anyone knows how to handle a setback and thrive as a result, it’s the people of Horizon. We won’t apologize for the ambitious goals we set, as nothing great ever comes easy. This is a detour on our journey, but our destination remains in our own hands. Please know I’ll be doing my part to help us get better and I sincerely appreciate all you do, each and every day.

Stay safe,
Dave
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