Alaska Airlines made waves in April with its $4 billion plan to acquire upscale rival Virgin America. But in Portland, at least, Alaska's smaller sister airline might be the one to keep an eye on.

Horizon Air, Alaska's regional carrier, quietly moved its senior leadership in 2014 to the Rose City, where it has long maintained planes, coordinated flights and trained pilots. Though it still calls Seattle its headquarters, Portland is Horizon's operational and executive home base.

Now, plans to buy at least 30 new jets -- the biggest order in Horizon's history -- put it in position to add nonstop flights to and from Portland International Airport and shape the airport's future expansion.

Horizon Air President Dave Campbell arrived in Portland in August 2014, following a short stint as a JetBlue executive. Before that, he was vice president of safety and operations performance at American Airlines, where he started in 1988 as a mechanic.

One of his first decisions was whether to keep his leadership team in Seattle or base it in Portland, where about 2,000 of the employees are based.

"I'm an ops guy," Campbell said. "As the operations leader, I really wanted to be here in Portland, where the majority of our employees are."

His next job was to lay the groundwork for a major shift in the company's fleet.

The company now flies 52 Bombardier Q400 turboprop planes, mostly on routes that serve small airports or feed Alaska's major hubs. From those larger hubs, passengers can board bigger planes to more popular destinations.

But Horizon's order of 30 Embraer E175 jets, valued at $2.8 billion, mark a change in strategy.

With them, Campbell said, Horizon can serve more "long, thin" routes, connecting smaller-market cities further apart than its turboprops could travel -- routes that couldn't traditionally generate enough service to justify larger planes.

"There are some markets, some days when you just can't fill a 737," Campbell said.

Alaska has already opened some of those routes using the Embraer jets, through agreements with Utah-based SkyWest Airlines. (Unlike Horizon, SkyWest is not an Alaska Air Group subsidiary.)

Campbell said he wanted Horizon to compete to serve those routes for its sister company instead.

But along the way, he said, the company had to cut its management costs by 9.5 percent, and it had to negotiate a new contract with pilots. The airline has also worked to cut the amount of time its planes are on the ground between fights.

"I think we've competitively repositioned ourselves, and it will fundamentally change the company," he said.

The new planes will also likely to mean more flights and more destinations for Portland International Airport.

SkyWest's Embraer jets have, in the last year, allowed Alaska to add service between Portland and Austin, Texas; St. Louis; Minneapolis; Atlanta; Omaha, Nebraska; and Kansas City, Missouri.

"We're growing this airport at a speedy clip, with a lot more point-to-point flying," Campbell said. "The Portland market has grown to where it can actually start supporting it. We have the right aircraft for the right market now."

Portland International Airport officials, too, are bullish on the opportunity afforded by Horizon's new planes.

PDX, for which Alaska and Horizon are the first- and second-biggest carriers by passenger count, had planned to break ground in January on a terminal expansion.

The plan is now on hold in light of Horizon's plans. The carrier's old fleet of turboprop planes boarded from the ground, but its new jet fleet could board using jet bridges, saving passengers some exposure to the elements.

That, though, means rethinking the $98 million airport expansion project.

"Putting them on a jet bridge requires a much different amount of real estate," said Chris Czarnecki, the airport's director of terminal business and properties. He said the airport should have the project redesigned in the next two to three months.

But the delay is a small price to pay for the potential growth. Horizon hasn't committed to any particular routes, but it has indicated the potential for new destinations.

"We feel like this is a really good thing for PDX," Czarnecki said. "It will open us up to new markets that wouldn't be serve necessarily by other airlines. It's a new opportunity for us."

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034

@enjus