You can operate whatever aircraft you want to operate on whatever route you want to operate. Right now, you can fly a turbojet on incredibly short sectors and make money doing it because oil is in the crapper.

Tilden can't afford in any way, shape, or form, to let either his capacity slide, or for customer satisfaction to tank. His board won't allow it because simply Alaska is fighting for survival against Delta. I jumped on Delta the other day, and they have a whole section in their inflight entertainment in regards to how important SEA is and what Delta offers in SEA. Delta isn't gunning for second place in SEA...

Which brings me to that little regional airline with a hangar in PDX...

Horizon produces one-third of Alaska's business. You can jump up and down on O/D from SEA all you want and how great it is, but those Q400s buzzing around pump Alaska full of money. And Horizon returns a decent profit for Alaska; better than what SkyWest produces for it's own shareholders. Horizon is feed and profit for Alaska and that is absolutely vital if Alaska wants to survive.

Alaska can not afford to let Horizon disappear. At least not now. If Air Group announced Horizon was being rolled back in any form one way or another, you'd lose over fifty pilots in the first two weeks, and there isn't an ounce that could be used to counteract the affects of that on the schedule. It would be a nightmare for Alaska's customer service and PR. And great ammo for Delta.

Unless Alaska has the capacity to replace half of Horizon overnight...like seriously overnight, they might be stuck planting jets at Horizon and growing the airline.

Not a mater of how much Horizon brings to Alaska. But how much adding E175's to Horizon will cost Alaska...

EXACTLY! Sure, QX is not as unproffitable as they want us to beleive, BUT, it is going to cost a fortune to get 175's online here and I just dont see the AAG board going for it. Regardless of how any sort of new TA with the pilots goes, the simple fact remains that 00 has the ability to easily absorb more E175 flying almost immediately. That is what worries me about this entire situation.

I firmly beleive that 00 will be the regional for AS, and Horizon will die with the Q400. Any city pair which is not profitable (or possible) to serve with the 175, will simply be cut from the schedule.

Welp, say goodbye to brand loyalty from your customers in Bellingham, Eugene, Lewiston, Pasco, Pullman, Remond, Vancouver, Victoria, Walla Walla, Wenatchee, and Yakima lol. Basically everyone in Oregon and Washington not in short driving distance of Portland or Seattle.

This horse is getting beaten to death. If they want to give the jets away, fine, go for it and it will be a good show for sure as Alaska tries to staff 54 planes for an entire year after dishing out a death sentence. It will finally give myself and a few hundred others an incentive to get higher pay, signing bonuses, and new jet type ratings.

Summer is coming BT :)

The 175 can and will go to most of those places. I hope for the best for you guys but pretending like it can't happen won't fix anything.

Of course it can, but it won't save AS money. That's what this entire clusterf*ck is about. Saving that one dollar.

It can very well happen. Not a single person is looking at this through rose colored glasses. We know what is at stake for Horizon, but we also know what is at stake for Alaska Air Group as a whole.

We are not talking about rampers in SEA. We aren't talking about rolling back a regional airline in the midst of a recession with a dozen other regionals with the capacity to take up the flying in short-order, ala Comair. Its a different ball game. And this time you don't have spare pilots sitting around to pick up flying at a moment's notice. You also don't have the jets...

Someone is going to have to choke up the money for these jets. If the Air Group board won't, then they expect SkyWest, who is leveraged to the gills and rolling around with a 2% profit margin, to pony up the money to do it? I'm not sure about that. Nor do I think Oscar and Richard want any 175s earmarked for their respective airlines to get painted with an Eskimo on the tail. No way they will let Chip throw them to Alaska.

You can drop a 175 into any current Horizon city. No surprise there. But can you essentially replace a 600 pilot, 50 airplane and change airline in three months? Because if Horizon doesn't get the jets, the place is going to clear out faster than Bryan Bedford can say "God Bless." And Alaska can not afford that.

If we get 'em, cool, but I won't be flying them. Nor will I give any in order to get them. I'm not partial to the 175 or any airplane, but I've got five-figures worth of stock on the line here. If Alaska screws this in any way, shape, or form where they give an inch to Delta, and loses customer loyalty because they decided to throw away Horizon and gamble, it's game over. It's a lot more than a Horizon-SkyWest ****ing match...

I actually completely agree with most of this and hope you guys get them. The point I was making is that you'd be surprised how quickly Skywest could take this on. Money in the bank? Not a problem. I really have a hard time believing all the lifers there would leave in 3 months. As ugly as it may seem I think this could logistically happen much smoother than you or I could imagine.

The crj schedules are maxed out. We are sitting at normal staffing... Maybe even a little fat on the 175 side.