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

LAX isn't very senior though, and that would be a short commute while waiting for SAN.

I think OO saw some longer upgrade times in the last couple years, but I'd expect them to shorten as retirements continue to ramp up. Could probably hold LAX CA in a comparable timeframe to QX.

Future predictions are difficult, but I think the conventional wisdom is that OO is a stronger bet if you're a SoCal resident.

1 year to hold SAN as a FO. NH’s can get LAX...

If you want to be west coast based and stay that way, you're going to want to avoid OO. Sure, you can get SAN or LAX fairly soon as an FO, but if you ever plan on upgrading your butt is going straight to Detroit. Have fun commuting to reserve there.

Mmmm...

FAT in the CRJ is doable... probably a 3 year upgrade. You could do your FO in an E175 and then get another type when you upgraded. That would buff and polish the old resume. :D

Also, someone showed me right now it’s 5-year most junior CA SAN, and 4-year most junior CA LAX, FWIW.

^if your talking OO. Keep in mind there LAX growth happens this summer. Those times will drop.. And if the new AA 175’s go out west. Then they will drop even more..

I was, apologies for not clarifying.

Kind of a drag...
SkyWest is such a frequent topic of conversation on the flight deck and in the crew rooms and on the jumpseat and On Your Horizon, and in the graffiti in SEA and BOI bathrooms, and now we're talking about them here, on a QX forum page, in a thread about QX seniority.

Just can't stop talking about them.

Oh, and in April QX pulls out of SMF so all AAG flying to PDX is OO so my boarding priority just went from #1 commuter to #3 OAL.

I'm not at Skywest, so I don't know if it's accurate or not, but it seems like they publish junior seniority at each domicile:
https://www.skywest.com/skywest-airl...es/pilot-jobs/

According to this, LAX ERJ CA is a little over 3 years, and SAN ERJ CA is pushing 5 years.

If I lived in SAN and had no intention of moving, I'd still pick OO over QX. LAX/SAN as an FO pretty quickly, and a Socal ERJ CA upgrade in 3 years or less. It's a future prediction, but it's likely to be less with OO's future plans and uptick in industry retirements.

Best case at QX as a SAN commuter, you get PNW based with a 2+ year upgrade.

How hard is a PDX-SEA commute? I know there's a flight every hour there and back but I hear most of them are pretty well packed usually.

It's miserable. Getting to SEA isn't a problem, getting back to PDX is a nightmare.

Just drive. It's going to end up being the faster way to go in almost all cases.

Spokane?
 

Is it difficult to get based in Spokane as a new hire?

Hiring has slowed down a little and the Spokane base appears to be shrinking. Realistically, I'd expect it to take about a year to hold Spokane. Would you consider spending a year in the Portland or Boise base?

Yeah, it's going to take a while to get GEG.

A month ago I would have said you guys were right about it taking awhile to hold GEG but the April bid awards assigned almost every single new hire to GEG and a total of 22 or 23 additional FO’s to GEG. Crazy I’ve never seen anything like that before! Guess GEG is the new MFR for new hires 🤷🏻‍♂️

But then again you could get here and have it take a bit to get GEG or you could get it right away like these folks did. You never know!

It took me 6 months from my date of hire to hold GEG but that was 2 years ago.

Holy crap. I go back to what I said earlier, there is no way to know what a base will be doing a few months from now. LoL!

I wouldn't mind spending time at any base in the system. I'm just looking for an opportunity to transfer to GEG within a couple of years.

How is commuting from Reno to QX bases?

It could be done. There are currently four QX flights per day from Reno to Seattle, and two per day from Reno to Portland. These tend to be pretty full and there are frequently pilots from other airlines who want to sit in the jumpseat. Horizon DOES have a commuter policy. If you follow the rules and still can't make your commute, then you won't get penalized.

Commuting from Reno could work, but I personally wouldn't recommend it as a new hire. It's stressful and will probably require you to commute on at least some of your days off.

How junior will SEA be on the Q400 going forward?

Right now, not junior. This month's vacancy bid closes soon. I'm quite junior and can't hold SEA. That might change in the coming months with additional classes (both Q new hire and upgrade) introducing some movement around.

Thanks for the quick reply

SEA is a pretty small base for the Q and can be hard to predict. It can also take a long time for a vacancy.

Once you get up to Seattle you can expect to be on reserve for a while.

Maybe this will all change over the summer and I'll be looking like an idiot. LoL whoooo knows.

Upgrade in the q came down to 3 years in Seattle/ Medford

Training?
 

Where does training typically get held for the Q? Is it Portland or Seattle?

Ground school in PDX, sims in SEA.

How long would it take to get PDX on the Q as a FO?

During new-hire training you may request a base. I think you could probably get PDX immediately.

If there's no vacancy you can't get it, regardless of seniority, so keep that in mind.