Hmm...okay, I'll bite. Why farm all the continental U.S. Horizon flying out to Skywest?

Take your time - popcorn will be another few minutes before it's ready.

This is scary because it's plausible. Not likely, but plausible. If they can get OO to cover down south, they could move the entire rump operation up north to do the interior. AS is getting rid of the small -700's, converting a few to freighters. The remaining -800/900's are far too big up there, the loads are terrible for them. (So say AS jumpseaters). Make money to Disneyland® and Maui with those.
OO would be far cheaper since they already operate a sizeable fleet of ERJs. Amortizing fairly inelastic mtx costs among a small fleet makes for really high per unit costs. We'll be facing that with the -400's.
Up north, that may be preferable, (read: cheaper), than half-empty Boeings.
But down here, hey, why throw shareholder value away when you may be able to grow it at a significant discount?

Never mind they're competing against us directly under Delta colors on multiple routes. That hasn't seemed to phase Angle Lake yet.

It's not possible. Skywest cannot staff our flying. Their pilots are already maxed out on their current schedules.

Parking a bunch of 200s can fix that problems quickly.

And those would have to be replaced by 76 seaters which would still have to cover the existing flying that was dropped. That would take years, assuming mainline gives up the scope for that, which i hope they wont.

Not only possible, but plausible as well. Read the follow on comments. As Skywest gets bigger jets and the fee for service stays reasonable, AS will always go where the yield action is. And for the Q400, that action is up north, especially if they get into the SE Alaska flying.

AS can get just as much EAS money out of the Feds with a Q400 as it can with a 737. I can see the 737s in PAKT and PAJN and the rest of the SE serviced by the Q.

This is the first i've heard of scope at Alaska.

I don't want it to happen but if Skywest needs to get rid of some of the 200s, say for United or American to free up some pilots to fly 175s for Alaska with a much more lucrative contract. They will do it in a heartbeat.

Alaska doesn't have scope but the idea of us flying 100 seaters for them was shot down real fast. As for the rest, interesting. I think Qx would be burnt to the ground before it was moved up to Alaska.

On an unrelated note, for all you prospective new hires who won't read the rest of the pages: You're looking at about 1 full year of reserve before you get a line, even in the most junior base.

Has movement really slowed down that much?

I know things have slowed down a bit since the "200% pay for everything!" stuff last year, but I didn't realize the junior bases had gone to that much time on reserve.

First off... For the sake of Horizon pilots, I would not want to see the airline vanish.

With regards to SkyWest being understaffed and pilots flying 95 hrs a month, that's not true system wide. SkyWest continues to train pilots at a record setting pace every month. Currently hiring exceeds attrition.

This I will say not as a threat but as a reminder of the past... This would not be the first time SkyWest took over all of the flying from another regional. Think Westair. When we started flying for United in 1997, we started flying Westair routes and slowly started taking all of their flying out of SOCAL. Westair was supposed to wind down in the fall of 1998. All of the sudden, they announced that they were ceasing operations in June instead. SkyWest got notice from United and asked if we could take over the rest the flying sooner. SkyWest ramped up training and acquisition of more Brasilias and was able to takeover the rest of the flying in record time.

I mention this as a warning to all of us (SkyWest pilots included). We are all replaceable. With cash in the bank and continued fattening of the pilot staffing, it would not be as painful as you think. Yes the AAG might have to temporarily suspend some routes, but others would get covered quickly.

I think that Horizon pilots are now in a sucky position. History has taught us that many great regionals thought they were too big or essential to be replaced. Some are not longer here after standing their ground and others are a fraction of their previous size.

Don't take the threats by the Airgroup lightly. Ask the former Alaska rampers. I was at SeaTac (commuting to SLC) the morning they got replaced.

While I would like to see us doing more flying out of SEA/PDX, I would not want to do it at the expense of the Horizon pilot group. There's got to be room for both of us.

If they shut us down for refusing concessions then eff them, let them do it. The majority of us here will be just fine with it.

Unfortunately I can't disagree with what is being said here. There is undoubtedly a possibility that AAG could move QX north and replace the contiguous US flying with Skywest. However, given the hiring climate I still don't see how they could retain control of that. Doesn't mean that it can't be done, but in a time of record profit and record competition it seems the safer avenue is to not risk ****ing off customers. Especially if the reason flights are being delayed and cancelled is because the company's employees are running for the hills.

I also don't see how flying an E175 or 700 to Yakima, Wenatchee, Portland etc could possibly be profitable

Alaska already gets those passengers....without having to spend a dime....with the price of oil so low, the state of Alaska is on its ass anyway

You wouldn't think so, but we fly 175s and 900's between LAX and SAN.

It's a lot less profitable when your customers click buy now on Delta's website because they get to ride a jet with first class wifi and a cheaper ticket. Before you were at QX I remember a message was sent out to the employees about "now more than ever we need to focus on customer service blah blah blah" I think it asked pilots to stand by the door and greet passengers and say goodbye as well. This was during the time when Delta and Alaska waged war on each other and boy was it fun seeing all the messages about customer service this and that. So anyways you could make comments on these little messages they sent out for all to see and I remember I asked... How do we expect to compete with Delta when we're saying hello to people soaked from walking in the rain out to our plane only to get onto a long flight with no wifi or meals? Somehow our presence would trump the fact that a couple terminals over the 175 or 900 and actually now to some degree 717's with much better amenities?... Not sure how well that's working out.

Regularly fly a 737-900ER between SEA-PDX or PDX-SEA.....have not flown one of those trips that is not at capacity. People are tired of the Dash 8 experience....

Believe me, EVERYONE is tired of the Dash 8 experience.

But...but there's free beer and wine...

40% of our lines this bid are reserve if anyone's interested.

How is this possible that the company can choose not share pertinent information about what parameters the scheduling committee needs to operate within, then just outright deny what they put together at the last minute? Are minimizing crew swaps slightly more so vitally important that it's worth sending out garbage lines that are overall more costly to the company?

Is this the company playing hardball or just coincidence that we have had awful lines for three bids in a row? This kind of **** isn't going to win them any amenability with the pilot group.

Whose lines? There are more block hours system wide than last bid.

I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment, but if memory serves, Seattle was right about there. These lines were absolute garbage. If the company is doing this to try and push PBS, they are going to be disappointed with the results.

Seattle always bares the brunt of bad schedules. Don't attribute the crap schedules to any sort of pbs conspiracy they have nothing to do with each other.

SEA FO lines are 39% Reserve plus composite that will probably be more reserve.

There was a 2-4% reduction in lines for SEA and PDX, BOI lines did not change. What did change everywhere is that many composite lines are now straight reserve. However, there are definitely some really bad lines in SEA. There are a few with min (13) days off and under guarantee.

% of lines that are not reserve/composite in SEA for bids 278-282 are 71%, 62%, 65%, 54.55%, 52.78% respectively.

I am not quick to jump to the conclusion that this is a conspiracy by the company, but why are you so quick to jump to the conclusion that it is not?

Is it completely out of the question that the company might force a series of bad schedules before pushing a vote for a new type of scheduling? It doesn't matter that PBS doesn't change the line building process, it just matters that people are discontent so they are more inclined to consider alternatives.

Not saying this is what they are doing, but if they are, they are doing if very poorly...

Based on the email from Brad there is no way this is not intentional. What a load of BS.

The two bids that the company's schedule were used had completely different causes. The first one was caused by the trip building software which had been recently updated, the second was our new president deciding that our schedule didn't dramatically cut aircraft swaps like the company's did. The Union decided that cutting down on crew swaps in such a drastic way would cut down too much on credit and trip quality but the company didn't see it that way.

I agree, if they are trying to influence Us to vote a certain way then they didn't think things through.

It is interesting that they would choose to reject the union schedule because of swaps in favor of something that is unequivocally terrible. I saw a line in SEA that is 77 credits and has 13 days off. That's almost a full 10 credits less than reserve with the same number of days off. Amazing.

In thinking about it, it actually kind of makes sense. We are quite overstaffed right now so building these low credit crap lines doesn't cost the company more money since they can do this at a lower line guarantee and would otherwise just pay pilots to sit on composite reserve and do nothing anyway. However it seems we all agree that approach is not winning any favor with us - something one would think they would make some small effort in trying to gain.

A PDX CA read me the the E-mail verbatim yesterday.
Using fourth-grade math, it does not work.
So yes, it's intentional. Please, prove me wrong... :(

Uhhh. I'm pretty sure you two are saying the same thing.

Is there a gap at all between ground and sim, and then sim and IOE?

Maybe a day or two. Not much, if any.

Yeah, not much. I had five days between ground and sim because that's how the schedule worked out. Most guys started after a 2 - 3 day break. IOE started two days after the LOE.

They may ask for an "alternate" from your class. The plan is to have the alternate take a few weeks off after ground school and join up with a sim partner from the class behind them, taking the place of someone who washed out or was delayed. However, if you volunteer to be an alternate, don't plan on actually getting the time off. They may need you to take the place of someone in your own class and start sim right after your oral.

That changed. When I went trough in early 2014, I waited for almost 2 months for IOE.

There is a CRF that was sent out the other day that said "We are working towards a more robust AS interview policy for QX pilots in the new year."

Any ideas what that means? Maybe a guaranteed interview program to make PBS more palatable?

When was this? Must have missed it. Can you pm it to me.

it was a CRF! Go look on FDDS haha

Wouldn't be surprised if AS dangles some guaranteed interview or flow promise in-front of the junior pilots in exhange for PBS.

Or it could be the exact opposite... More robust interviews as in more selective.