Base Seniority?
 

What are the junior bases at Horizon? What can a new hire expect out of training? TIA

That’s incredibly hard to predict. Medford is a pretty common base out of training. Generally you can get to where you want within a few months. Sometimes there won’t be vacancies for 6+ months (SEA recently). Any of them will likely be an option to you within your first year of working here. Where do you want to be?

If you pick the E175, it's exclusively SEA out of training

the best place to commute out of San Diego

If it were me, I would desperately try to be on the E175 as a new hire. At least on that fleet, you can get SAN overnights. You can't switch fleets as an FO for 4 years, but you can upgrade into either fleet when eligible. E175 upgrades are about 2.5 years currently. Q400 upgrades are as soon as you have 121 minimums (and the company buys off on your experience).

As noted, you'll be SEA based initially on the E175. However, PAE and PDX are options that wouldn't take too long to hold as an FO. Over time you could figure out which E175 base has the easiest commute and/or most SAN overnights. One advantage that a PAE commute might have is that it's on Horizon aircraft (highest cabin/jumpseat priority). However, SEA has the most SAN flights on multiple airlines and is probably the best choice.

IMO, commuting from SAN to the Q400 MFR, BOI, or GEG bases would suck. And the SEA Q400 base is becoming almost non-existent. It takes years of seniority to hold a line on the Q400 in SEA in either seat. Commuting to PDX wouldn't be too bad, but right now it takes almost a year to hold a line in PDX as a Q400 FO.

Seriously, you really want the E175 as a SAN commuter.

Thanks. This is the info I was hoping for.

Doesn’t OO have a SAN base?

I mean, I know QX despises OO, but if I were looking to compare commuting out of SAN and (I know, crazy, actually being based there!), wouldn’t one suggest a similar airline has a actual pilot base there, when everyone’s hiring?

What a silly industry we live in.

I don't know for a fact, but I imagine SAN goes pretty senior at OO.

SAN super senior at OO