Pilot development Program
 

Just saw an article about the PDP Horizon which flows to Alaska at 1,000 pic at Horizon.
Anyone have any insights? These flows oftens seem to be somewhat of an impediment to getting to mainline.

I like to see that article, LOL. Simply not true. As of now if you are hired after April of 2024, and you apply, interview and are accepted, you require 1600 PIC to be eligible to be assigned a class date at Alaska. For people hired before April 2024, it is 6 months as a captain to be added to the list. Last I checked the list is over 150 pilots long. You are "awared" a class date on company seniority, and it is entirely up to mainline to decide how many grunts they call up. There is no requirement to take any pilots from that list when they are hiring.

If youre looking to go to Alaska, it's widely said to not come to Horizon. While the regional is essentially the same culture as mainline, and operates basically the exact same way (training culture, people culture, pay, HR, ect ect), you will be sitting on the "pathways" list for a long, long time. Alaska isn't hiring, and when they do they typically pull about 10-30% of their classes from the "pathways" list. Its not the best deal for a wholly owned regional, hence "pathways" in quotes.

Interesting, thanks for sending that. It definitely is not a “flow” at 1000 hours, and the most recent comms the company got was about a year ago changing the requirement from 6 months as captain to 1600 hours. I guess it could have been lowered to 1000 but I feel like there would have been some sort of dissemination regarding it. I’ll ask around for ya.

It has never been 1,600 hours.

You're right, I must have been thinking of the other airlines programs. I dug around and found the email from SD. They changed for anyone hired after April 2024, 1000 PIC for eligibility.

WHOOPS! My mistake

The best way to get to Alaska is through Skywest.
They limit their class size to no more than 30% being horizon. "Cant gut the workforce" and it's not often They hit that cap.

They have no such limitation for Skywest.

Even after getting on pathways you sit till they need a slot filled regardless of hours and there isnt any apperent priority given to pathways folks.

Anecdotally, online there does seem to be a whole lot of Skywest people at AS, and that cuts across generations... new hires, 30-year guys, and everything in between.

Some of that is presumably geographic... AS likes to hire folks who live near their bases, West Coast people like bases on the West Coast, and OO largely has the Western US regional market locked up.

OO will always get hired before QX