The reason behind our 76 seat turboprop being a lower payscale than the 70 seat RJ is pretty simple: When we got the plane, it was for 70 seats. I believe, and I'm pulling from really old memory here, that the aircraft was certified to 74, so we simply made our payscale go up to 74 seats.

Interesting fact: It was a pilot that pushed management to go to 74 seats and pay the pilots more. Our managers hemmed and hawed, made up lame excuses and basically said 'no'. 3 years later they put in the extra 4 seats and patted themselves on the back for coming up with such innovative revenue producing ideas.

A few years later, they did some model testing with some of our MVP passengers, and decided that they could squeeze another 2 seats in there. This is where I draw on old memory again, so I may be a bit off, but I believe that required 'buying' a higher gross weight for the aircraft (this was when avg pax weight went up by 20 lbs or so). Anyway, the Union basically said ok to the 76 seat thing since we were coming up on the amendable date of our contract and that would be included as part of the negotiating process. Interestingly, the new cabin configuration with the 76 seats shifted the weight forward (waaaay fwd cg) as well as caused some FA logistical problems (her butt bumping into seat 1B's face when it came time to do service). I suspect that is why we only have a handful of these 76ers.

So there you go. We now have a 76 seat airplane with low costs and a lower crew rate than the 70 seat RJ. Evolution of the Q400 created this situation at Horizon.

Another myth busted.