Originally Posted by
fenix1
If a pilot sought a career with Alaska as their destination/career airline, is Horizon - as Alaska's wholly-owned carrier - the worst possible regional they could work for?
My theory is that the progressively-deepening pilot shortage is driving the major/legacy airlines to create "systems" in which they can manage the pilots (i.e., balance between regional & mainline) as they see fit to do as much cheap flying as possible, so - in flow/agreement scenarios with a wholly-owned regional - pilots who are part of the wholly-owned regional won't get to the mainline carrier as fast as they would by applying from outside the "system." Thoughts??
I have no Part 121 experience so I would love nothing more than for the folks who have done some turns to correct me if this is a bad/incorrect way of thinking.
We've been saying this for years. Alaska will only take a maximum of 30% Horizon pilots per year. They won't sabotage their regional feed. Since the Pathway program has not hired any horizon pilots yet we don't know long it will take, but a conservative guess would be at least 3-4 years of longevity before being eligible to move on.
It's better to be part of the 70% (Military/skywest) and skip the whole demeaning and degrading "surrender your attendance/disciplinary/training records" act they got going on ONLY for horizon pilots and no one else.