Alaskan Pilot looking to commute to regional?
 

Hi there,

Asking for a friend who does not use the forum (and may be wondering a little myself....don't judge!) How do able would a commuting job with a Regional Carrier be for a pilot who lives in Anchorage....and wishes to remained married and sane?

RadialGal

Probably would work ok for a regional with a Seattle base looks like there's a good amount of flights. Compass, Skywest. Go wherever reserve is shortest. Compass also gives you 4 commuter hotels a month to use before or after your trips. That would be the least painful route to go. But no matter how you put it commuting will always suck.

I would check into Horizon Air, I think they're part of Alaska Air.

Both Corvus, Horizon and Pen Air have ANC bases, Horizon is the better bet though by far

I was considering the same thing. In the end I went with Penair as I don't want to spend that much time commuting.

I'm told the QX ANC base is pretty senior.

I would look into Corvus (Ravn), pay seems good plus the dash is fun to fly.

The other variable is if you want to work for Alaska Airlines, experience flying for a commuter (Ravn/Pen Air) will give you a leg up for interview purposes.

Horizon is overall not a good place to come to right now, we have multiple threads up explaining why so I won't go into it here.

The only thing I would warn you about ANC is its high likelihood of closing down once the jets start revenue flights next May. If you come to horizon now you will be seat locked on the Q for 4 years. If the ANC Q base closes you will get displaced to the lower 48, obviously.

The rates are misleading as they aren't breaking garuntee with the oil industry slow down, upgrades are forever, and they are probably only taking a couple of street hires this year.

4 year seat lock? Does that mean you are stuck in FO Q400 seat for 4 years or just FO seat for 4 years (with ability to FO on the jet)? Either way, not a bright prospect! Is this seat lock deal forecast to be permanent?
Also, this does not jibe with the APC info "Upgrade times now down to 2.5 to 3 years". What gives?
Thanks!

Pen Air seems like a decent place to fly

There's always that cargo outfit that works out of the north airpark flying 1900s. One of my F/Os in the past came from there and ended up at Atlas.

At Horizon you are seatlocked for 4 years on the Q400, you cannot switch over to the jet as an FO. Nothing will prevent you from upgrading on either the Q400 or E175, however you will need about 15 years of seniority before you could hold E175 captain. So that pretty much leaves just the Q400 for you to upgrade on. The E175 will be strictly reserved for super senior captains and new hires after March 2017.

The APC profile says upgrade in 2.5-3 years and that is correct...if you were hired 2.5-3 years ago. We had a massive wave of new hires in 2014-2015 and 8 months of seniority stagnation when Alaska halted all of their classes. So the 2.5 year upgrade is not possible if you were hired today and nothing changed. Looking at the seniority list theres 2 year FOs that still have 150+ FO's infront of them, and we only upgrade 4-8 every other month and none during summer. 90% of our captains are lifers and not going anywhere so movement is pretty much centered on FOs bailing or aircraft growth. We still don't know if the company will park Q's or not. I don't think they want to, but as of right now we cant get any new hires into the Q for the reasons above and our lack of incentives (namely none) that we offer new hires.

Tomorrow will be interesting because our LOA that would increase new hire pay to $41 (and give the company freedom to change it whenever they want) and reduce the seat lock to 2 years (still worthless if you're hired before the jets arrive) will be voted down. We predict the company will violate our contract and offer new hire bonuses anyway which will start a long drawn out court battle grievance process.

It's going to get ugly, I would recommend Compass or Skywest to anyone who *has* to live in a PNW base.

I live in Anchorage, and commute to Portland for penair. It's really not very bad at all.

That would be ACE. 1900 flying in Alaska should qualify you for just about anything.

Thanks for the insight, Snacky...

Seems, even if you are hired into the jet next year, you could be looking at perpetual reserve as an FO (if a steady influx of FOs coming off the Q seat lock transferred over). On the other hand, fast upgrades could happen on the Q with people moving over to the jet.

Ah man, there is so much to like about Horizon/Alaska (great product, top-notch flying, PNW, etc.). I hope this, somehow, gets sorted out for you all.

Would love to come up there if it does... Best of luck!

All true statements, but I think they still pay better than PenAir, not totally sure. A new FO who doesn't break garuntee is $3,000 / month.

Corvus is like every other company, theres plenty of issues, but theres also plenty of good reasons to work here. Dash 8 flying with home every night schedules, commutable from other places in AK, a few guys from PNW even, and decent pay compared to the others. Also, we have a solid standing with AS for hiring, several of our captains went this year and 2 more going next month for sure, possibly more.

I'm pretty sure there is a bonus at pen air now and upgrade is supposed to be pretty quick.

This is absolutely true. Alaska Airlines places a premium on pilots who have flown for the regionals in the state of Alaska.

$5K signing bonus (at completion of training), then quarterly $3K bonus.

But they don't have a ctp course, so the $5k bonus is basically there to cover that.

Why wouldn't a new hire in a jet be able to upgrade quicker than 15 years? The experience on the 175 places that new hire jet FO ahead in line than a "un-seatlocked" Q FO for upgrade? What else am I missing other than the slow attrition of the captains? I don't know the demographic of them, and if we'll see a higher retire rate/attrition rate as the rest of the industry is really starting to see.

90% of our captains are here for life, that may change as things get worse here but for now it is what it is. Our only attrition is from junior captains leaving and FOs leaving for other airlines. We're only getting 13 jets next year so only the very top % of senior captains will get to fly them. Horizon is an incredibly senior airline, we're taking guys with 30+ years walking around.

Jet FOs won't upgrade before Q400 FOs, that's not how the seat lock works. The 4 year seat lock prevents a q400 FO from bidding 175 FO and vice versa, but you're always able to upgrade when your seniority allows it. Since you won't have the seniority to be a jet captain your only choice will be to upgrade in the Q.

However, not only do we have a 4 year seat lock, but there's also a sub item in the contract that says if an FO bids FO on a different plane, they will be locked in that seat for an additional 2 years before being allowed to upgrade.

This makes the effective seat lock 6 years at horizon if you try to switch planes as an FO.

Compass has a SEA base that you could hold right out of training, and upgrade would pretty much be as soon as you get your 1000 121