Aloha SF,
I am a 15 year QX'r so I can't give you the scoop on a lot of new-hire questions you asked but I can tell you a few things. First, we hire into all three aircraft, the CRJ70, the Q400 and the Q200. We also hire into all three domiciles (yes three) KSEA, KPDX and KDEN (well, Denver if I got the identifier right?) The Denver deal is our Frontier (F9) contract flying gig, we call it the "country club" over here in PDX. As for sitting reserve, I'm sure all new hires will be doing some of that, but not a lot of sitting around, we use our crews pretty regularly. Great if you want to fly, bad if you prefer sitting airport reserve and not being used (as an aside you might want to have your head examined if the latter <grin>). Now as for how long you might expect to do that, who knows? I do know we are scheduled to add 12-16 new planes to our fleet by next year, most will be substituting Q400's for the Q200, but it's still early, if we find a place to fly the mini-whackers to we'll probably keep them and G-R-O-W! for a change, real growth, not this "add 4 extra seats to the formerly 70 seat Q400 and call the growth (yes I know it technically is..ASM's and all that..you know what I mean!)"
With all this "flux" going on no concrete times are valid. We are about to begin our second contract negotiations soon and this should prove "interesting". All in all I think this is a better time than later to seek employment here, it is a good company to work for, don't believe all the "talk" on the street, an no, I'm not the Chief pilot here although I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express the other night, <yuk yuk> Hope this helps?