Ratso

Thank you Snacky for the response.
What about below average? A EUG turn for 2?
Do you guys have holiday pay?
Profit sharing? Any bonuses?

cactusflyer

I'd say the only good thing about QX at the moment is the people.

Outside of upper management (who range from "well meaning, but clueless" to "sociopaths with MBA's"), most of the employees here are great people that love what they do, and QX is small enough that you end up actually getting to know some of the people you work with, especially at the smaller bases like Boise or Medford.

We also get to do some fun things with the Q400 (hand-flying CAT III approaches, RNP .1, etc...), but that's nowhere close to being worth the $20k you'd lose in just the first year of coming here versus any other regional.


Pilots don't get any kind of holiday pay at QX.

As for profit sharing, we do get a bonus check at the end of the year based on a mix of Air Group profit, customer satisfaction, CASM, and safety, which has worked out to around 9% (about a month of pay) for the last few years.

We also have a "performance based pay" setup, which awards up to $300/quarter based on customer satisfaction and on time performance. Since the on-time metric usually gets hosed by things like Q400's deciding to break (which they're very good at), or flow to SEA, the full $1200/yr payout for PBP is pretty unlikely to happen.

snackysmores

One of our reserve pilots posted their last ordeal assigned to them by crew scheduling.

6 days of flying in a row, 12 hours of duty each day. He credited 30 hours total.

Who wants to have 13 days off in a 35 day period and make min guarantee? For a first year pilot you can expect to make $650 per check.

Jonneaux

I don't see how Horizon will survive more than another two or three years.

So long as they have the Q400 on the property, recruiting will be an enormous problem. No one wants to fly a turbo-prop these days, so qualified candidates will go somewhere else if only offered a position in the Q. Strike one.

I hear upgrades are already being cancelled for lack of FO's. If you can't upgrade, why go there. Strike two.

Even if a new hire is offered the ERJ, they will never upgrade. At other regionals you can make jet captain in three years. If you must stay in the PNW, SkyWest has bases in Portland and Seattle and an ERJ upgrade just over four years. Strike three.

Staffing problems will drag down performance and QOL. Economies of scale at other larger regionals, yes I mean SkyWest, will mean that Horizon will have much higher costs in an apples to apples comparison.

By late next year, Horizon will begin to implode. Within three, they will be gone.

Please show me where I'm wrong.

word302

Not to add fuel to the fire, but OOs ERJ upgrade is 3 years and falling. Under 2 years on the CRJ.

snackysmores

I don't believe Alaska will allow us to die when we bring them a 10% profit margin, when most other regionals barely make 1-2%.

Once Alaska starts losing money from cancelled flights due to lack of FOs they will pay up to get new hires here. They are just waiting until they absolutely have to. As much as they want us to believe, we are not easily replaceable. No other regional out there has the aircraft or pilots to feed Alaska from our out stations. Alaska prides itself on having the best brand loyalty from its customers. If they allowed horizon to die they would lose 40% of their feed and simultaneously give a giant F YOU to their loyal base, who will now be forced to drive 3 hours to Seattle to get on a cheaper Delta flight.

I just don't see it happening, at least not yet.

If they decide to stab us in the back with our jet deal and give them to SkyWest the airline wil die too and they know it. All FOs will bail and most junior captains, and quickly.

Jonneaux

Your dreaming. More money won't attract new hires to a company with no upgrade in sight or a fleet of turbo props.

I don't expect them to just shut it down. More likely they will either just give Horizon away or sell it for $1, just to be rid of it.

Galaxy5

What does this have to do with anything? The "can't get hired without jet time" or "they're noisy and uncomfortable and just not sexy" arguments?

Jonneaux

No, they can't get hired without PIC time. And, they are noisy, uncomfortable and not sexy....at all.

Any pilot who meets the 121 minimums can pretty much go to the regional of their choice. Given the choice between flying crap schedules in a turbo prop or flying a brand new ERJ175 or even an old and busted CRJ 200, they will take the jet. Even if that means flying for MESA.

One of the main reasons SkyWest retired the Brasilia is because potential new hires, if offered a Brasilia class, would take a job somewhere else. About a quarter of our attrition comes from new hires chasing signing bonuses and quicker upgrades elsewhere.

Are you sure about that? How long will you be profitable when you can't staff you flying and your performance goes to crap?

Horizon is facing a demograhic implosion.

Galaxy5

I'm no Kool Aid drinker, you make good arguments, but this one fails. We've had FOs hired by AS, DL, NK, etc., with no PIC, no jet time, just QX FO on their resumes. Lots of good arguments not to come here, but this one doesn't hold water.