The whole situation is very strange. I've worked at Horizon for nearly 20 years, and we've never been fat on pilots... until now.

In the past, management's standard policy was to keep staffing levels extremely low. Reserve pilots were used to cover "known" open trips (left over when bidding closed), with no reserve coverage left over for irregular operations or sick calls. It was actually cheaper for the company to offer premium pay for open flying than it was to staff the airline properly.

We complained about the staffing levels for years, but it took a major meltdown in 2016-2017 for the company to do something about it.

As a mid-level line holder, I average around 65 hours per month. This is actually a lot of flying for the Q400, as legs tend to be short. I'm averaging 4 - 5 legs per duty day, with 15 days off per month. It's not a bad schedule, but I'd be perfectly O.K. if they spread the flying around and used the junior guys a little more. Management has complained for years that we cost too much money and were "overpaid", and now they're just paying pilots to sit around. I don't get it.