For what it's worth recruiter told me new hires can expect MFR/BOI out of training. I interview in a little over a week, but like all things with airlines stuff like this can change.

BOI CA is at least 3 years

Thanks! Yeah that's what the recruiter told me, too, so I'm glad to hear that. I also wanted to see if anyone on the inside could confirm that.

Sounds good. I'm in less of a hurry to upgrade than I am to live in Boise, so that should work out.

Another question: If I move the family to Boise after being hired (should I get the offer), and I end up at MFR or PDX, how hard will it be to get home on occasion? Do they give you more than two days off in a row ever while on reserve? Or should I plan on not seeing them for a few months?

Thanks!

Can anyone explain how premium pay works? Incentive pay? Etc.

All I know is something either happens or used to happen or whatever at 83 credits. I’m on reserve this month but it’s looking like I’m gonna get about 90 credits.

Thanks.

Sorry if this has already been asked, but what is the domicile seniority breakdown of E175 vs Q400?

How many E175 domiciles are there? How long would it take to make captain on E175?

How long would it take to make captain for a new hire FO?

Well, the Q400s are going away and every single person currently flying them is senior to you. Also, there are probably a higher percentage of lifers at Horizon than at Skywest or Compass, guys who got trapped here by the "lost decade" and are now flying their choice of schedules in the base they want to be in and have to consider if it would really even be worth it to make the move to Alaska now and start out as a junior FO on reserve,and quite possibly commuting, while making less money the first couple of their not too-many years of 121 flying left as an Alaska junior FO than they do as a senior guy here. As soon as PDX becomes an E-jet base, they are going to hop on those captaincys.

So a lot of that depends upon how fast Horizon goes all e-jet, which it likely will, and whether or not a true flow to Alaska develops, and how Horizon junior captains fare in the competition to move up to other legacies besides Alaska.

If all you are looking at is speed to make e-jet captain, going to Skywest or Compass would almost certainly be quicker, although QOL may suck, especially commuting to LGA or ORD with Skywest.

The E175 only has one domicile - Seattle. The jet and turboprop (I fly the Embraer) have quite different schedules at present. Since we are adding jets, they're creating a training bubble for the new E175 pilots. That means there's a lot of new hires for not that many flying lines, check airman, etc. The good news is that you will learn to fly a great airplane and get a lot of time off in the first six months or so. The other good news is that upgrades are available shortly after 1000 hrs 121. They're prodding FO's to upgrade, especially to the Q400.

While I agree that the Q400 will eventually go away, it will take quite a while. We need to complete delivery of ALL 30ish E175s before we start diminishing the Q400's much further. The company wants to stay at around 60 a/c. But there is NO way that you would upgrade to CA in the jet faster at Skywest (not sure about Compass). My buddy lives in SEA, flies the E175 for Skywest, commutes to BOI and expects to upgrade around 3-4 years. My sim partner upgraded to jet CA at 1 1/2 years. My math says it's much faster at Horizon. Still, things can change on a dime.

The Q400 pilots are busy, no doubt. They have more legs per day and less time off because they're still beefing up the staff. That being said, there's still plenty of people who want to live in Medford, Boise, Spokane and Portland who are willing to fly the mighty Q and live where they want. Good news here is that the major airlines don't care whether you flew a turboprop or a jet, as long as you have some PIC 121 time. The Q400 is a faster upgrade, too.

The Q400s are being parked on a 1:1 ratio with each jet delivery. We are not growing this year, in fact we are going to be -2 airframes by the end of 2018.