Horizon Air (QX, Seattle Tacoma International) will resume deliveries of E175 aircraft in March 2018 after it had postponed them in summer 2017 due to a pilot shortage, the Seattle Times has reported.
The thirteen regional jet aircraft to be delivered in 2018 will replace the same number of Dash 8-400 which will be retired by the airline, according to an internal memo seen by the newspaper. In 2019, the airline plans to add a further ten EMB-175s to grow its fleet to a total of seventy aircraft.
According to the ch-aviation fleet module, Horizon Air currently operates ten EMB-175s and fifty Dash 8-400s.
Deliveries of the Embraer aircraft started in March 2017, but were halted in the summer as the regional specialist owned by Alaska Air Group ran into operational difficulties and was forced to cancel hundreds of flights due to a lack of pilots. To avoid further cancellations, the airline has reduced the number of scheduled flights from 360 a day a year ago to only 295 a day this month. Some of the routes were taken over by Alaska Airlines and others by SkyWest Airlines.
According to the Seattle Times, this has allowed Horizon Air to reach a 90% on-time performance in November and exceed this level in December so far.
According to the original schedule, the airline had intended to take delivery of six more EMB-175s this year.
Horizon Air has also already hired 278 new pilots in recent months, some of them joining Horizon Air from the bankrupt Island Air (Hawaii) (Honolulu). Horizon Air plans to employ a total of 670 new pilots by the end of 2018.
