I had a friend of mine who is currently a first officer at AS bring my Resume to his base chief pilot at Alaska and the chief pilot told him that the only way to go from Horizon to Alaska is now through the pathway program. And so he would not be willing to meet me.

This has been confirmed by other people who are also currently trying to get interviews at Alaska outside the pathway. Some have been able to do it depending on the strength of their connections. But it is a strong count against you to be at Horizon but too junior for the pathway program to be helpful.

By my calculations I would get called in roughly three years from now or about five years at Horizon. It is however difficult to predict as people with higher seniority can enter the pathway ahead of me at any time.

People have definitely been hired at Alaska with less time than I currently have. I am a qualified candidate but not a real strong candidate, no checkairman, not military.

My purpose with posting this is to help someone who is qualified to potentially go to Alaska and is considering a job at Horizon in the meantime to get recent 121 time or for whatever other reason. Make sure you exhaust all of your options at getting an Alaska interview before applying to Horizon. Its not a situation where they count time at Horizon as a plus when scoring your application. It seems to be a substantial minus. And if you blow the interview you can go to Horizon and put your name on the list below the rest of ours. But at least give yourself the chance to avoid that five year delay.

If you are a 992 hour restricted ATP who wants to go to Alaska Horizon is possibly a good option.

The best way for a regional candidate to get to Alaska is to go to SkyWest.

Yup, unless you are 1-50 on Pathways program.

Enter at “any time”? I was under the impression that entry into the Pathway program was predicated on an interview. Are interviews continuous or periodic?

They are periodic, once a quarter i think. Greaser was implying that not all pilots on the seniority list had entered the program yet. But could do that at the subsequent rounds of interviews.

I'm surprised though how quickly they stopped taking pilots outside of the Pathway program. I was under the impression that QX pilots would be able to apply and get hired directly as well.