I've broken min guarantee 2 out of 3 months on reserve so far and am on track for this month as well. I've been blocking 50-60 a month on reserve with no extra flying on days off and credited 65, 79, and 85 hours in those 3 months respectively. I should hold a line next month too.

 

It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? At some point the minimums will have to go down to be competitive... how much is anybody’s guess.

 

The whole situation is very strange. I've worked at Horizon for nearly 20 years, and we've never been fat on pilots... until now.

In the past, management's standard policy was to keep staffing levels extremely low. Reserve pilots were used to cover "known" open trips (left over when bidding closed), with no reserve coverage left over for irregular operations or sick calls. It was actually cheaper for the company to offer premium pay for open flying than it was to staff the airline properly.

We complained about the staffing levels for years, but it took a major meltdown in 2016-2017 for the company to do something about it.

As a mid-level line holder, I average around 65 hours per month. This is actually a lot of flying for the Q400, as legs tend to be short. I'm averaging 4 - 5 legs per duty day, with 15 days off per month. It's not a bad schedule, but I'd be perfectly O.K. if they spread the flying around and used the junior guys a little more. Management has complained for years that we cost too much money and were "overpaid", and now they're just paying pilots to sit around. I don't get it.

 

It seems pretty obvious that the ones who can afford to are indeed warehousing pilots. It is smart. It reduces likelihood of being caught short, helps attrition (takes longer to get hours needed to move on), and enables them to extend their training out further, lengthening the “pipeline” of pilot supply. It may even be that, once they’re on property and trained, it’s cheaper to pay more pilots minimum pay than pay fewer extra/incentive pay. But regardless the strategic value is worth the incremental cost...what did canceling flights due to no pilots “cost” Horizon?

 

AS was very not happy. Some QX managers got fired, and they're on double secret probation. They cannot afford a repeat.

 

Probably very true, but to the RATP with 1250 hours who came aboard in the latter part of the panic hiring who actually NEEDS to get hours to be competitive when the peak of the retirement wave opens the doors wider for hiring at the majors, long reserve times with little actual flying could be a career killer, because unlike a couple other legacies, AS won’t have huge numbers of those mandatory retirements.

This is sort of like the coach burning a players redshirt without actually giving them enough playing time to develop them.

 

Caveat Emptor. Choose your regional carefully. At least you get to chose these days.

For some folks QX geography might be worth it, but QX has never been known for fast career progression.

 

Endeavor has been offering time off without pay for at least 9 months now.

 

Interesting development. I kinda wondered if other regionals were doing what Horizon was doing. Going quite fat on pilots. The world wonders.