Goal: Alaska...fly anywhere but Horizon?
 

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.

FWIW, during my interview I asked whether or not a horizon pilot can apply to Alaska during the normal application window. Both the horizon and Alaska chief pilots said they saw no reason why not. So theoretically you could be part of that 70% as well.

True or not...may just come down to who you know to get your app pulled from the stack.

Yeah but let's be real, everyone knows they aren't going to call you. Alaska has the mentality that if you aren't willing to surrender your docs as a Horizon pilot you automatically are trying to hide something.

The career pathway program is too new. We have no idea what effect it will have on hiring habits at Alaska.

One could imagine a situation in which the program increased applications at QX, creating a surplus of bodies. It could also go the other way. We just have no idea.

If you want to work for Alaska DO NOT go to Horizon. There has been a traditional corporate philosophy of not using "robbing" Horizon pilots for Alaska that goes back almost 30 years.

Your best bet...Sky West or any other regional.

I don't have a specific problem with the act itself, other than the fact that only Horizon pilots are subjected to this treatment.

A Horizon pilot and Skywest pilot (or from anywhere else to be fair) show up to interview on the same day. Both are offered CJOs. The Skywest pilot gets an immediate class date and the red carpet rolled out for him, while the Horizon pilot must surrender all records and be deemed worthy in order to continue. The Skywest pilot is in class 2 weeks later building seniority while the horizon pilot has to sit in a pool for almost a year before being allowed to start.

This is the part that management still fails to understand.


With that said, here's some info I have about the pathways program... So far there have been quite a few people interview for it, and the success rate is over 90%. No idea when those people start going to class, how senior they are, or what people did to get rejected. I suppose more info will become available as things progress. My opinion thus far is that it's probably a good opportunity for those senior enough to be toward the top of the pool, but for a new hire I wouldn't call it a big advantage. By the time a new hire was senior enough to see any impact, I'm sure this program will have been modified to be something else completely.

Thank you
 

I appreciate all who replied to offer their insight & perspective. Frankly, it's beginning to feel like these programs to move pilots from the regional to the mainline are nothing more than opium for the masses & purely a recruiting tool without a lot of gumption behind them in reality... (All WO regional/mainline pairings, not just QX to AS)