Horizon Junior FO Base
 

Good afternoon,

Are any new hire FOs getting placed in ANC?

Thanks in advance.

Probably not. Junior guy is 4/15, nobody's bidding out, and there are several with bids in to go.

Thanks a lot!

ANC is a very stagnant base. You won't get it out of training, and when you do get it you will be permanently on reserve and NEVER fly.

If you're considering coming here right now, you aren't very well informed.

Or... Very smart to ask and make himself better informed. I'd wager it's the latter.

Not a bad place to be. Good chance of jet flying with a pretty good set of work rules and flying in the NW. Avoid ANC base unless it is opened up for more flying or if you really like Xbox.


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Compared to Skywest and Compass we have:

-Lower pay, lower min guarantee
-no signing bonus
-no commuter hotels
-no daily min guarantee
-no leg by leg cancellation pay
-no jets
-no long call
-high STD payments
-$700 uniforms
-1 year reserve for new hires, perpetual endless reserve as captain upgrade


What we DO have but are giving away for free to the company after this TA passes:

-Awesome SAP bidding
-Highest 76 jet rates


If you are considering coming here thinking you will fly a jet, you WONT unless you get here after Feb 2017. You will be assigned the Q400 until then and the seat lock is 4 years. You will upgrade before the seatlock is over. You will never hold jet captain seniority, ever (unless you want to wait 15 years.)

Maybe you'll get here just in time for our next round of concessions in 2018.

What are the jet rates and what is the junior base, then?

The last couple of classes have had people end up in PDX, MFR, SEA, GEG, and BOI, so there really isn't a single junior base right now.

As for the jet rates, the TA we're currently voting on has us flying jets for our current turboprop rates (with annual 1.5% increases), but the jet rates in our existing contract are about 10% higher than the turboprop rates.

One other thing worth mentioning is that starting in 2017 (assuming the TA passes) we're effectively creating a "B scale" by forcing new hires to use an insurance plan that has no annual premiums (the existing plan is all of $17/mo for one person), but a much higher deductible if you actually have to use the insurance.

Was that pay rate in effect when you were operating the F28 as well? Yeah, what a slap in the face to accept jets contingent upon a 10% pay cut.

By the way, Wikipedia says Horizon once operated DC-9-10's. Is there a story behind that?

Oh yeah forgot about that one. New hires will be forced into only 1 option for healthcare. A PPO with a 2k deductible, but they give you a 1k HSA you can blow in 1 doctor visit for your kids.

Wiki is wrong. I'd expect someone mis-identified a DC-9-10 instead of an F-28; (-1000's & -4000's). Unless you were familiar with them, they look very similar.

It was a DC-9, however it was a wet lease operated by another company on behalf of Horizon. It wasn't for very long.

A bunch of fo's up there are beginning to upgrade so you might get it within a few bids if upgrades keep going. However, unless they expand anc flying you won't upgrade anytime soon.

I have to wonder if the ANC base is working anywhere near as well as Air Group thought it would.

When the base opened, I remember there being lots of statements about how QX would take a bunch of flying from Alaska, but that base has had zero new flying for about the last year, and the last new city they got (Deadhorse) only got service because the oil companies guaranteed they'd buy a certain number of seats on those flights.

Wouldn't be surprised to see ANC close if/when jets arrive.

Nah.... When AS gets rid of the -700's, there's going to be nothing under about 180 seats. No 737 will be able to make a profit hauling people with the load factors they'll get. (An AS CA already told us the loads suck a lot of the time on the larger 737's, since the -200's left.)
I'd expect the Q400's will start getting more routes as the -700's freighters carry the profitable stuff, (the mail & cargo).

Think of what happened when we went from the -200's to -400's in WA/OR/ID.