Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
This is good advice for all airframes.
Horizon
- Thread starter ppragman
- Start date
SurferLucas
Southern Gentleman
KEEP THE BALL CENTERED!
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Excellent advice! I will take this to the sim with me, I had a few days off to decompress but will be getting into the flight training guide and diving back in the FSM tomorrow to prepare for next week
WS
Well-Known Member
THIS! Been there, done that!
thevideographer
Well-Known Member
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
What the heck is going on at Horizon now. Massive cancellations due to lack of pilots?
thevideographer
Well-Known Member
Is it true that they aren't honoring the 4.2 hour min day for the contract they just signed? I'd probably quit. Oh wait, I did.
DE727UPS
Well-Known Member
http://www.seattletimes.com/busines...of-flights-this-summer-due-to-pilot-shortage/
Horizon Air — the regional airline that is part of Alaska Air Group, carrying passengers on shorter flights throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond — is cutting its flight schedule this summer because of a severe shortage of pilots for its Q400 turboprop planes.
The shortage became a crisis this past month when Horizon was forced to cancel more than 318 flights because it didn’t have enough pilots to fly all its planes.
In response, the airline is now pre-emptively canceling flights later in the summer and is weighing if it needs to pare its schedules for the rest of the year.
On Thursday, Horizon Chief Executive Dave Campbell sent a memo to employees announcing that the airline is cutting multiple flights in August and is studying its fall and winter timetables “to ensure we have schedules that we can reliably operate.”
Campbell wrote that the pilot shortage, coupled with the airline’s unprecedented growth as it has added aircraft, “created a perfect storm.”
“June will go down as our ‘bump in the road’ — our moment when things got too far off track, and now, we must decide how to recover,” Campbell told employees. “We have established a war room to daily manage potential cancellations.”
About 17,000 passengers who have already booked flights between Aug. 4 and Sept. 3 that are now canceled will be automatically rebooked on Horizon or Alaska flights leaving either earlier or later that same day.
Alaska Air spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said those passengers should already have received an email informing them of the flight change.
She said Horizon has targeted cancellations for routes where the airline flies multiple times per day.
“Horizon has been strategic in making sure wherever possible that we can rebook those guests with minimal impact,” she said.
The canceled flights represent 6.2 percent of all Horizon flights in August, Egan said.
In response, the airline is now pre-emptively canceling flights later in the summer and is weighing if it needs to pare its schedules for the rest of the year.
Example of cancellations
Examples where one flight will be canceled on each of these routes:
Seattle and Boise: Now with 8 daily flights
Seattle and Spokane: Now with 15 daily flights
Seattle and Portland: Now with 26 daily flights
Redmond and Portland: Now with 5 daily flights
Portland and Sacramento, Calif.: Now with 3 or 4 daily flights
In an effort to reduce cancellations, it’s also sending out managers who are qualified pilots to fly the planes and offering double pay to pilots who fly extra flights.
“Premium pay” offer
To address the problem at Horizon, Campbell said in his memo that in addition to the schedule cuts, the airline is “offering 200 percent premium pay” to pilots who fly extra flights beyond their normal schedule.
Horizon’s flight-operations team is also increasing from 19 to 34 the number of supervising pilots — known as “check airmen.” This should speed up the introduction of new pilots, who must have such a supervisor alongside them in the flight deck as they embark on flying a new aircraft type.
And the airline has boosted its recruiting staff from two to six and is working with aviation schools on recruitment, Campbell said.
The offer of double pay for the overtime flights has created a surprising conflict with the pilots union, Teamsters Local 1224.
Horizon’s management and the Teamsters agreed in April on a new contract that specifies that overtime should be paid at 150 percent, not 200 percent.
In a letter to Horizon pilots last week, the union leadership — counterintuitively — objected to the company paying more than the contract stipulates and urged the pilots not to accept what it called a “200 percent bribe” to fly extra flights.
Greg Unterseher, director of representation for Teamsters Local 1224, said in an interview that the union objects to the company unilaterally amending the terms of the contract.
It doesn’t want management paying a handsome bonus now just to get through the crisis, then taking it away later.
“It’s not going to solve the issue,” said Unterseher. “They messed up on their staffing. They still don’t have the people to fly the airplanes.”
He said one exacerbating factor for Horizon is that young pilots coming into the industry want to further their careers by flying jets rather than turboprop planes like the Q400s that make up the vast majority of Horizon’s fleet.
Unterseher said he had a positive meeting Thursday with Campbell and that “we’re trying to figure out ways to move forward.”
In an interview Thursday, Joe Sprague, Alaska Air’s senior vice president of external affairs, rejected criticism in the union letter that management has not been proactive in addressing the pilot shortage.
He said the new contract with the Teamsters includes provisions aimed squarely at increasing recruitment.
Pilot bonuses
The airline is offering hiring bonuses of up to $20,000 for Q400 pilots to join the company — $15,000 at completion of two months of training and $5,000 more after a year of service.
And starting pay has been increased from $30 an hour to $40 an hour, from the first day of training.
Sprague said an encouraging sign is that Horizon’s new-hire pilot classes — which provide training on the planes they’ll fly — are full for June and July, with 30 trainees passing through each of those months.
But he said it will take time for the new recruitment efforts included in the newly ratified pilot contract to bear fruit.
So the selective cancellations now planned are temporary, he said, “while we build the staffing back up to where we think it needs to be.”
Though Campbell’s memo makes clear that June was a bad month for cancellations and lays out the plan for August, it only glancingly addresses what’s ahead in July, a very busy holiday month.
It’s clear that cancellations will mount in the month ahead and Campbell asks employees to deal kindly with affected passengers.
“As we move into July, let’s stick to what we do best,” Campbell told employees. “Kindness to our guests and to each other will always make us shine.”
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com
Horizon Air — the regional airline that is part of Alaska Air Group, carrying passengers on shorter flights throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond — is cutting its flight schedule this summer because of a severe shortage of pilots for its Q400 turboprop planes.
The shortage became a crisis this past month when Horizon was forced to cancel more than 318 flights because it didn’t have enough pilots to fly all its planes.
In response, the airline is now pre-emptively canceling flights later in the summer and is weighing if it needs to pare its schedules for the rest of the year.
On Thursday, Horizon Chief Executive Dave Campbell sent a memo to employees announcing that the airline is cutting multiple flights in August and is studying its fall and winter timetables “to ensure we have schedules that we can reliably operate.”
Campbell wrote that the pilot shortage, coupled with the airline’s unprecedented growth as it has added aircraft, “created a perfect storm.”
“June will go down as our ‘bump in the road’ — our moment when things got too far off track, and now, we must decide how to recover,” Campbell told employees. “We have established a war room to daily manage potential cancellations.”
About 17,000 passengers who have already booked flights between Aug. 4 and Sept. 3 that are now canceled will be automatically rebooked on Horizon or Alaska flights leaving either earlier or later that same day.
Alaska Air spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said those passengers should already have received an email informing them of the flight change.
She said Horizon has targeted cancellations for routes where the airline flies multiple times per day.
“Horizon has been strategic in making sure wherever possible that we can rebook those guests with minimal impact,” she said.
The canceled flights represent 6.2 percent of all Horizon flights in August, Egan said.
In response, the airline is now pre-emptively canceling flights later in the summer and is weighing if it needs to pare its schedules for the rest of the year.
Example of cancellations
Examples where one flight will be canceled on each of these routes:
Seattle and Boise: Now with 8 daily flights
Seattle and Spokane: Now with 15 daily flights
Seattle and Portland: Now with 26 daily flights
Redmond and Portland: Now with 5 daily flights
Portland and Sacramento, Calif.: Now with 3 or 4 daily flights
In an effort to reduce cancellations, it’s also sending out managers who are qualified pilots to fly the planes and offering double pay to pilots who fly extra flights.
“Premium pay” offer
To address the problem at Horizon, Campbell said in his memo that in addition to the schedule cuts, the airline is “offering 200 percent premium pay” to pilots who fly extra flights beyond their normal schedule.
Horizon’s flight-operations team is also increasing from 19 to 34 the number of supervising pilots — known as “check airmen.” This should speed up the introduction of new pilots, who must have such a supervisor alongside them in the flight deck as they embark on flying a new aircraft type.
And the airline has boosted its recruiting staff from two to six and is working with aviation schools on recruitment, Campbell said.
The offer of double pay for the overtime flights has created a surprising conflict with the pilots union, Teamsters Local 1224.
Horizon’s management and the Teamsters agreed in April on a new contract that specifies that overtime should be paid at 150 percent, not 200 percent.
In a letter to Horizon pilots last week, the union leadership — counterintuitively — objected to the company paying more than the contract stipulates and urged the pilots not to accept what it called a “200 percent bribe” to fly extra flights.
Greg Unterseher, director of representation for Teamsters Local 1224, said in an interview that the union objects to the company unilaterally amending the terms of the contract.
It doesn’t want management paying a handsome bonus now just to get through the crisis, then taking it away later.
“It’s not going to solve the issue,” said Unterseher. “They messed up on their staffing. They still don’t have the people to fly the airplanes.”
He said one exacerbating factor for Horizon is that young pilots coming into the industry want to further their careers by flying jets rather than turboprop planes like the Q400s that make up the vast majority of Horizon’s fleet.
Unterseher said he had a positive meeting Thursday with Campbell and that “we’re trying to figure out ways to move forward.”
In an interview Thursday, Joe Sprague, Alaska Air’s senior vice president of external affairs, rejected criticism in the union letter that management has not been proactive in addressing the pilot shortage.
He said the new contract with the Teamsters includes provisions aimed squarely at increasing recruitment.
Pilot bonuses
The airline is offering hiring bonuses of up to $20,000 for Q400 pilots to join the company — $15,000 at completion of two months of training and $5,000 more after a year of service.
And starting pay has been increased from $30 an hour to $40 an hour, from the first day of training.
Sprague said an encouraging sign is that Horizon’s new-hire pilot classes — which provide training on the planes they’ll fly — are full for June and July, with 30 trainees passing through each of those months.
But he said it will take time for the new recruitment efforts included in the newly ratified pilot contract to bear fruit.
So the selective cancellations now planned are temporary, he said, “while we build the staffing back up to where we think it needs to be.”
Though Campbell’s memo makes clear that June was a bad month for cancellations and lays out the plan for August, it only glancingly addresses what’s ahead in July, a very busy holiday month.
It’s clear that cancellations will mount in the month ahead and Campbell asks employees to deal kindly with affected passengers.
“As we move into July, let’s stick to what we do best,” Campbell told employees. “Kindness to our guests and to each other will always make us shine.”
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com
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CirrusMonkey
No Real Usefulness
I remember when I was QX and Dave Campbell arrived, he immediately cut out 200% pay. I'm glad to see him get his ass handed to him for once.
SurferLucas
Southern Gentleman
pete2800
'Member?
I had this conversation with another person the other day.
The solution will have to come from Alaska Airlines flight ops and HR. I firmly believe that there's nothing a regional airline can do to attract employees that will carry as much weight as a defined career path. A $20k bonus pales in comparison to losing months or years of time a person could have been at a mainline carrier...
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
I think cost of living has a lot to do with why regionals like Horizon are not able to keep a constant flow of pilots in the door. Even with the new rates, though way better than the previous rates making even 40k a year while trying to live in Seattle and portland anymore can be hard. Especially if you are in debt with student loans and flight training. In my class, I was the youngest and I'm 29. Most other new hires were older pursuing their second careers with a large financial safety net established. The truth is, without that safety net many young pilots are going to airlines that offer great career preogression. Airlines like Envoy and PSA give people an opportunity to see past the lean years on top of a bonus. Horizon has been known lately as not only the long road to Alaska, but with the labor management issues many are going elsewhere fearing QX may hurt their chances to move to Alaska. A real flow would be nice, but the reality is Alaska does not have a mass exodus like American does in the next ten years. So why would they start a flow if not needed.. This new TA will help, as the classes behind me were more full but as we can see that solution will take a few months to see relief on the line during the training process.
Another issue is Horizon is the only airline still operating a turboprop, many new pilots interview wanting only that shiny new jet. Not saying that's right, but that seems to be the norm now..
Another issue is Horizon is the only airline still operating a turboprop, many new pilots interview wanting only that shiny new jet. Not saying that's right, but that seems to be the norm now..
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ctab5060X
Well-Known Member
Think you forgot about PenAir, Silver, Commutair, arms Piedmont.
PenAir and Silver operate turboprops exclusively.
ASpilot2be
Qbicle seat warmer
And I think we are both struggling to find people. Nobody wants to fly a turboprop sadly.
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Piedmont, Commutair, and Penair would like a word.[/QUOTE]
I stand corrected.. Im sure those airline new are having a hard time filling classes as well
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
Exactly.
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
So how are those airlines doing then??
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
It's not a prop vs jet thing, it's a pay/QOL thing. Shoot I'd gladly fly any of those frames for pay comparable to what I make now (or even less pay with a better schedule). The prop may have a little to do with it in that the smaller aircraft may have a little less potential to generate enough revenue to make the pilot pay pot sweet, but it's at most a contributing not deciding factor/