Horizon Jumpseat
 

I know that the jumpseat is ultimately the captain’s domain, but is there any official policy on riding the jumpseat now due to COVID? Thank you in advance!

No change to normal procedures. I’ve heard of a few captains denying requests because of covid, even to Horizon pilots, but 95% of the time you shouldn’t have any problem.

Ok, great, thank you very much!

When you look at who is listed for a flight on the PET Login, if it shows people listed, is there anyway to know if they are pilots, beyond X1? An X1 could basically be any employee so no way to differentiate between flight attendant, mechanic, pilot, etc, until at the gate?

Correct.

And if loads are tight, registered commuters may not even list as a commuter, since they can't process/list you for the JS in JACS with a commuter listing.

There have been a couple times that trying to commute, the only seats available were the cockpit and FA jumpseats. There would be another non-QX pilot obviously waiting to see if they win the lottery. I'd chat them up, and if they were nice and not a jerk, I'd have the gate agent move my listing to the FA JS so they could at least get on the flight (since QX pilots can sit in the FA jumpseats if open).

You can still list as a commuter. The gate agent will then create a second listing with an X1 priority. You may even have two separate X1 listings if you list yourself for pleasure travel and then have the gate agent list you for the jump. This is standard practice.

There is no way to know. The only way you can guess at it is if you see them listed twice, then it is probably a pilot but could also be a FA. But this would only happen at the gate, as to list for the jump (either jump) the gate agent will create a separate listing that will also show up on the standby list.

Interesting. Every time I've listed as a commuter (W5) on QX metal, have gotten to the airport and seen it might be tight, the gate agent has told me that I need to drop the commuter listing, relist as X1 and then they can process me for the JS.

Sorry to hear that. I have had this happen as you describe once in Seattle about a year ago, but it was wrong and should not happen that way. I wonder if at some point in the past they received incorrect training or something. Is it a specific station or gate agent that is telling you this? Recently I have not had any issues with it. If this happens to you again please report it to the union. You can simply email them via the exco, stewards, or jumpseat email. It’s totally unacceptable for the gate agent to tell you this and their manual is very clear on the correct way to do it: they create a second X1 listing for you.

Thanks.

It happened 3-4 times this summer (always in SEA, but different agents). I just started dropping the W5 listing on my own as I was watching loads increase and just list as X1 and request the JS when it started to become obvious there weren't any seats in back. Only denied a JS once (when CLP was playing tankering games). Haven't run into it since. I'll just continue to list as W5 and if I run into the problem again, I'll e-mail the union.