He definitely would have stayed out of DC.

What's happening at Horizon and Jets?
 

Preface-- I'm a newb and learning the game.



Alright I've read the past 20 pages and I come to an astounding amount of confusion, and I can't seem to understand this.



1) How do you just not get paid for 26 hours? This has to be a misunderstanding on my part because I can't imagine this being let go

2) Clear up this 4.2 mess for me please. Let's say someone is turning four flights a day and logs 3.8... this is saying that the company is supposed to pay 4.2 regardless, correct?

3) initial pay at training. 16hrs a week at $40. I'm just an ERAU guy but my public math tells me $640/week. Even with per diem that's worse than I ever thought.

4) I'd like to verify my acronyms and clarify a few. AS- Alaska Iron, QX-Horizon Iron, AAG- Alaska Air Group, CBA-Collectiv Bargaining Agreement, LOA letter of agreement...and PBS???



Thanks in advance.

EDIT: thread below on hiring gouge info answered a few acronyms for me being IATO codes. And how bitter griever is... I respect it.

1. For some reason our contract states that you will remain on training pay until the end of your IOE bid. So even if you finish IOE in the first week of the bid, you will not get paid more than the training pay. We actually had a new hire do exactly this and he picked up 5 premium pay trips. The company not only refused to pay him premium, they wouldn't pay him at all. He literally will have to work those trips for free for the rest of the month in addition to his built up line. If I was him I would call in sick for every single one of them. It's not like he has any sick time accrued anyway, and the company isn't going to pay him no matter what so he won't lose any money. They wouldn't dare fire him because we would just be short another dash FO.

2. Yes, no matter what we are not supposed to be paid anything less than 4.2 per day of work. The company is flat out not honoring this contract item they agreed to.

3. At least you will get $40/hour vs. $30

4. Correct to all, PBS is Preferential Bidding System aka PURE EVIL if you are junior. Works great if you're senior or above 60% seniority or so.

Kind of counter factual for me to consider.

When I chose to come work here we was still considered a good destination, but had a long as heck upgrade time. That was an acceptable trade off as I made a choice to live in base, and no other regional had the bases that we offered.

I played the short game, it didn't pay off. Oh well.

You guys have more info and choices than I did just a few years ago.

Just don't be seduced by recruiters, they might show you cash and shiny jets, but the only thing that matters is cash, qol and career progression weighed against what you can reasonably ask your significant other to deal with.

From the CEO. Why would anyone come here.

From Dave Campbell, president and CEO:

Horizon team –



Being in the airline business, you and I know all too well that traveling often means packing plenty of patience. Things can change on a dime or plans just go horribly wrong. How you choose to respond determines the outcome. For Horizon’s most recent journey that began with Commit to Compete, June will go down as our “bump in the road” – our moment when things got too far off track, and now, we must decide how to recover and still get where we’re trying to go.

To put this month in perspective, we have canceled more than 318 flights because we didn’t have enough pilots to fly our planes. Compare that to only four such cancellations last June. It’s been frustrating to experience and disappointing to see on paper. This is difficult for all of us, especially those who deal directly with our guests. It’s not fair to them and certainly not to you. We can do better; and ultimately, we will. But doing better means making some difficult choices, and one of them involves our summer schedule.

Between August 4 and September 3, we plan to cancel lines of flying, impacting nearly 17,000 guests. This gives us time to stabilize our operation and preserve our reputation as an airline people can count on. I know you have a lot of questions and I’m sure one of them is how we got here, especially considering our recent amended agreement with the pilots’ union. While the amendment has initially shown success in helping us fill pilot classes for the first time in many months, the regional industry’s shortage of pilots, coupled with our company’s unprecedented growth, created a perfect storm of issues, which we are working hard to resolve.

Our immediate plans include the following actions:

We have established a war room to daily manage potential cancellations.
We are increasing pilot reserves to account for the variation in attrition. These reserves will help us better fly the schedule and reduce the impact on guests.
Flight Ops Training is working to enhance their ability to forecast training needs through better tools and processes.
Our management pilots are out flying the line to help mitigate the current staffing shortfall.
We are offering 200% premium pay to encourage more pilots to pick up open time.
Our Flight Ops teams are tightening their staffing models to compensate for unfilled classes. Additionally, we’re increasing our check airmen numbers from 19 to 34.
We continue to enhance our recruitment programs to attract more pilots. We’ve increased the number of recruiters we have on staff from two to six and we continue to build our partnerships with aviation schools.
Meanwhile, we will work hard to accommodate all our guests as quickly as possible.

As we move into July, let’s stick to what we do best: owning safety and being kind-hearted. Remember, you are empowered to stop a flight if you feel it’s unsafe. And with warm weather, ATC delays and operational disruptions, it’s tempting to drift away from our values. Kindness to our guests and to each other will always make us shine.

Looking further ahead, we’re studying the upcoming fall and winter schedules, as well, to ensure we have schedules that we can reliably operate.

Again, I know this change coming in August is not what we had in mind when we started down this road to expand. But it’s absolutely the right thing to do while we get back on track. And if anyone knows how to handle a setback and thrive as a result, it’s the people of Horizon. We won’t apologize for the ambitious goals we set, as nothing great ever comes easy. This is a detour on our journey, but our destination remains in our own hands. Please know I’ll be doing my part to help us get better and I sincerely appreciate all you do, each and every day.

Stay safe,
Dave

Upgrades will be almost non-existent and rumor is reserve will be the new normal with extensions to every trip flown

Vicious cycle = Cutting back flying and upgrade classes to shore up staffing only to see even less future staffing due to said upgrade cuts and less flying.

Yet to see an airline cutting back lead to new interest from potental pilot applicants. Good luck with that qx.

Sorry if it's already posted but here is an article, I thought the comments section was good.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/horizon-air-cutting-hundreds-of-flights-this-summer-due-to-pilot-shortage/

Yup, Management continues to do the same thing every time but expects different results.

Surprisingly all 20 upgrades were awarded this morning as advertised